Gravity
by friendlyquark
Summary: Rose and the Meta Crises Doctor adjust to domestic life and Torchwood learns to adapt to the Doctor. Things in Pete's World may never be the same again. Set near the end of Susan's War and before Once More, Into the Breach. It's not necessary to read the other stories to understand this though.
1. Chapter 1

Rose Tyler stood on a beach, cold wind blowing through her soul and watched the TARDIS vanish. The Doctor, the new one, reached out and took her hand and together they stood there, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives.

* * *

"I've gotten a hold of Pete! He's sending a zeppelin for us!" Jackie told them and the Doctor turned and grinned at her.

"Did he finally buy you one?" he asked and Jackie grinned back and nodded.

"When Tony was born," she chuckled.

He looked down at Rose and saw the tears tracking down her cheeks.

"Are you okay with all of this?" he asked softly, his other self hadn't really given her much choice in the matter.

"No, I'm not!" she wailed and he had a moment of sheer terror. Was he going to lose her? Was it over before it had even started? Suddenly she spun and flung herself into his arms, sobbing wildly and he wrapped her up tightly against his heart and held her.

"Oh, Rose, my love, it'll be all right. We'll make this work somehow, I promise," he babbled and Rose clutched him tightly, shoulders shaking. "I love you so much. I will always be here, by your side, I'll never leave you, I promise. We'll have such a wonderful time. We'll do anything you like, at your pace, however you want things done, okay? It'll be fine, my heart, it will," he babbled, trying to soothe the pain and grief she was feeling and she shook her head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she mumbled and it took him a moment to realize that she was talking to him. She'd called him 'Doctor' and it made him deliriously happy. "I'm not crying because it you, I'm crying because of him," she told him and he was confused. "He'll be so lonely!" Understanding bloomed inside of him and he nodded.

"Lonelier than ever, because even the hope of you will be gone," he sighed out. No more Donna, no more Rose, what would his other self ever do? How would he survive?

"He couldn't watch me die, could he?" she whispered and he nodded.

"No, I don't think he could watch either of us die, really." She looked up at him and tears were still trickling down her face.

"I would have stayed with him forever," she sighed out and then dropped her head on his chest.

"He knows that and it means everything to him. But, watching someone you love that much growing old and dying is agonizing, but worse than that is living for centuries more, without them." She nodded against him. "I lost you once and it nearly killed me, I don't think he would have survived it again."

"So, you love me?" she asked, her head coming up and those amazing brown eyes were warm on his. He wiped the tears from her eyes and fetched out a handkerchief for her from his jacket pocket.

"Yup," he told her, popping the 'p' just to make her smile at him. She blew her nose and smiled again.

"And you want to spend the rest of your life with me?" she asked, her eyes filled with so much love that it made his single heart flutter.

"Oh yes," he agreed and he'd never meant anything as much as he'd meant that.

"Then where would you like to get married?" She cocked her head to one side, her smile dazzling.

"Rose Tyler, I will go anywhere, do anything, and wear anything, as long as it includes trainers, that you want. I don't care how we get married, as long as we do, and as long as we have a brilliant honeymoon," he informed her, watching her smile grow wider as he spoke to her.

"Here now! I'm planning this wedding and you are not wearing trainers to it!" Jackie interrupted and the couple looked at her in dismay.

"I bet there is a Justice of the Peace in town," Rose suggested.

"Run!" he laughed, grabbing her hand and taking off, their feet flying over the sand.

"Don't you dare, you two! I have waited all her life to plan her wedding!" Jackie shouted after them, but they were running and laughing and the whole world was in front of them. They had a lifetime together to get started on.

* * *

The long gray ribbon of the road between the bay and the nearest town gave them the opportunity to hold hands, swinging their clasped fingers between them with grins on their faces.

"So, did you know what he intended to do?" she asked him and watched him frown a bit.

"I had a suspicion, after all, aside from some minor differences, we're the same man. I even understand why he was angry at me, even if I can't agree with him on this," he told her and she frowned.

"You mean the whole 'genocide' thing?" she asked and he nodded again.

"When I destroyed both Gallifrey and the Daleks, it was the worst, most horrible feeling in the universe. I wondered if killing people, or getting them killed was all that I was good for. I thought that maybe I was a worse monster then any of the creatures that I'd fought for so long," he confessed and she stopped to step into his arms and hold him tightly. "Then you took my hand and I could see it in your eyes. I could see that I hadn't fallen as far as I'd feared. I wasn't a monster, after all." She kissed him again and he leaned into her, arms and lips so much warmer than they had been.

"Oh Doctor," she sighed. "I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that," she told him, stroking his hair gently.

"Yeah, but you fixed that, love, sure it still hurts like hell, but just the way you look at me makes it all better, really," he assured her and kissed her brow with gentle tenderness. They released each other and began walking up the road again.

"So, you destroying the Daleks reminded him of all of that?" she asked next, trying to get some understanding of his mind.

"Yeah, I think seeing me do that, even after all that we both had seen, it hurt him, made him feel like a monster all over again." The Doctor shook his head with another sigh.

A car came towards them and the Doctor waved it down. It was a little Citroën and the driver was a tiny old woman who looked at them suspiciously. The Doctor spoke to her in Norwegian, at least Rose assumed it was and the woman thawed instantly, smiling and laughing at whatever he was saying. She had a face like withered apple and bright sharp eyes.

She nodded and the Doctor opened the back door and they climbed in, him still chattering away to the old lady.

"This is Mrs. Falla, her family has lived around her for hundreds of years, she's going to take us to the Mayor so we can get a license and then we can go to the local church," he chirped happily to her and Rose found that she was grinning. He really hadn't changed much; he could still make friends in the most unlikely places.

The back seat was tiny and cramped, but neither of them minded.

* * *

The ride into the tiny town of Askvoll was picturesque. Mountains, water, rock, scrubby grass, the birds that were everywhere in the air, on the ground, perched on rocks, or the infrequent trees that twisted up out of the ground.

Norway was beautiful, but Rose was feeling like she really wanted to go home. Too many life changing events seemed to happen here for her. At least, this one was going to be a good one. She grinned up at the Doctor and he grinned right back at her, and she felt like a goofy kid. They were getting married. It was certainly about time.

"I wish I still had a TARDIS Rose, I'd take you to all the best places," he whispered and she could see the sadness the lurked in the back of his eyes. After hundreds of years of having all of space and time at his feet, he was now trapped on the slow path with her.

"We can still go anywhere, you know, Paris, Tokyo, and everywhere else on Earth," she assured him. "It's a big planet." He nodded and squeezed her hand.

"This, you and me, this is gonna be the best adventure ever," he told her and his eyes were bright and the sorrow had receded. She looked up at him and nodded.

"Big adjustment though, eh?" she asked, not quite ready to let go of the subject. They had a lot to work out, after all.

"It's not my first trip around the block, Rose Tyler," he disputed. "I was married before, had a son, a daughter in law, a granddaughter. I had a brother, who was an arse, a mother that I adored, and a father I was determined not to grow up to be like; family is not something new for me. Just because they are all dead now, doesn't mean that I don't remember what it was like or what the job of husband entails," he told her and his voice was soft and filled with a longing she hadn't heard in it before.

"You must miss them so much," she murmured and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"My Mum and my granddaughter, yeah, I miss them both so much. The rest of the family?" he shrugged. "It varies between a relief not to have to deal with them anymore and guilt that I feel that way. I loved my son, but he was ready to turn my little Susan over, just because it was politically expedient."

"So, not the happiest family life, then," she teased and he grinned at her.

"Oh, Susan and I were very happy, she'd have loved you, Rose, she would."

"She'd have approved of you marrying a human?" she asked in disbelief.

"Why not? She did," he told her and she blinked in surprise at that revelation. "It was, I think, the main reason the other me couldn't do it. I watched Susan after her husband died of old age. There she was, still young and vibrant, and she just froze over with grief. She never did recover. Two hundred years after his death and she still never dated, never remarried, never even looked at another man."

"Oh! How terribly sad," Rose gasped, suddenly seeing what the cost of marrying her would have been for the Time Lord Doctor. "I never thought about it, I guess, what would happen after."

"I know. It's hard to think that way when you're young. You only see the immediate joy and the long term sorrow seems so far away. But nine hundred years, Rose, it's a lot of perspective. It's a lot of painful experience." He rubbed at his head and she leaned against him, seeking comfort and warmth. He held her against him and she could feel him tense up.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just still angry, I guess, angry at him for judging me. It's always all right for him to kill off a whole planet, but the minute someone else does it, it's suddenly a big problem," he grumbled and she grinned at him.

"Don't talk about yourself like that," she teased and he shook his head in amusement.

"I hereby apologize for having been an arse for the last nine centuries," he announced and Rose giggled.

"Apology accepted."

* * *

They reached the center of Askvell and Mrs. Falla dropped them off with happy congratulations. He waved good bye to her, already feeling charmed with his new life. He'd rarely had to hitch a lift before. Having your own TARDIS insulated you a bit from such things.

"I ever tell you about the time that Marco Polo stole my TARDIS?" he asked Rose and she laughed.

"No! Really?"

"Yeah, got stuck travelling the Silk Road with him for just months, trying to convince him to let me have it back. I almost won it back from Kublai Khan in a backgammon match, but the old cheater beat me in the end," he complained and Rose looked up at him with her smiling eyes and her tongue-tipped grin and he felt utterly content with everything. Well, except for the loss of his entire race, being dumped into an alternate universe, and not having a TARDIS anymore.

"What was he like, Marco Polo?" she asked and he sighed.

"Far too trusting of the wrong sorts of people. Ian liked him a lot, but I really couldn't like a man who'd steal from an old man and a young girl," he grumbled and Rose laughed again.

"I bet he didn't know how old you really were!" she chortled and he sighed.

"Actually, back then I was really quite young. I looked so much older than I do now, but I was really still just a kid. I hadn't had all that Time Lord arrogance knocked out of my head yet either," he admitted and she stared at him. "What?"

"When did that happen, exactly, the bit where you stopped being arrogant?"

"Oi!" he shot back. "You should have seen me before, Rose, or met the High Council on Gallifrey! Now there was a load of stuffed shirts with more egotism than common sense! Don't even let me get started on Rassilon either! That man took narcissism to whole new heights!" he told her, with a roll of his eyes.

"All right, all right, I can see that you are an icon of humility in comparison," she teased and he started to calm down again. It seemed that he was a lot more angry in this body than he was in the other, or maybe he just wasn't as good at hiding the anger that they both had buried in them.

The memory of watching Gallifrey burn, of knowing that everyone he loved was dying or dead, hearing the screams of Time Lords and Daleks alike echoing in his head, washed over him. Tears pricked his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I know I'm a bit rubbish, a sort of second best, or also ran, for you." She grabbed him hard and kissed him, arms around his neck and body pressed against his. He was quickly overwhelmed by the sensations, her mouth on his, her hair against his face, the pulse of her heart against his own. Everything was washed away by her onslaught on him and he embraced her, holding her against him, falling into her gravity, burning up on re-entry, and happy to die in her arms.

She pulled back and they were both shaken by the intensity that was moving through them. She looked him in the eyes, her hands on either side of his face, making him look at her.

"You're not second best and you're not rubbish. You're the only one, of the two of you, who was willing to stick by me. You're the one who was able to tell me how you feel, the only one who would kiss me, hold me, and make me feel like I was worth standing beside. He left me, you didn't. That's not rubbish, that's what's really important, that's what matters. He's the one that's a bit rubbish, actually, because he ditched me," she informed him with a fierce glare and that aspect hadn't occurred to him before.

"He…" he began, but she cut him off.

"Don't let's make excuses for him, we both know it's not because he didn't love me, or want me. He couldn't make that leap, he couldn't risk his heart and I understand that. It hurts like hell, but I do get it. But I don't want to ever hear you say that you're less than he is, when you're so much more!"

He buried his face in her hair and held her tightly.

"Rose Tyler, I love you," he murmured and she squeezed him tightly.

"I love you too, Doctor," she told him. "Now, before Mum gets ahold of the police or something, let's get married.

"Allons-y!" he shouted and they ran for the town council building, hand and hand, grinning like children.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N - These chapters may be shorter than my usual ones from Susan' War, Once More, or Jiggery-Pokery, since I'm telling just their perspective here. I don't know, some may be longer as they work stuff out. Just warning you. :)

Wedding Blues

The mayor of the town was happy to help them; she helped them fill out the forms and then she asked for ID and their Visas from entering Norway. The Doctor's face fell.

Psychic Paper wasn't going to cut it here, Rose realized.

"We may have a problem," he sighed out.

"Well, I suppose we will just have to wait for Pete to come up with paperwork for you," she consoled him and his face fell.

"What's the problem?" the mayor asked him and he shrugged.

"I lost my ID on the beach," he explained and the mayor patted his hand and told him where the nearest British consulate was.

"So, we wait a bit," Rose consoled him and he nodded, taking her hand and walking outside. "I'll call Mum." He nodded again and walked a bit away, staring out at the water, the cold wind whipping his hair and jacket.

She could see that he was upset and she phoned her mum and made the arrangements to be picked up quickly, so she could get back to him. Her mother was not amused by them running off and she hung up in the middle of a diatribe.

"You okay?" she asked him and he looked at her with eyes dark in thought.

"Not a very well planned out elopement," he told her.

She held his hand and leaned against him, wishing there was more that she could do. He was looking around and then suddenly he grinned.

"Too human, that's my trouble!" he laughed suddenly and began searching his pockets. He pulled out a long navy blue necktie and wrapped it around his hand, offering her the other end. "Take it," he told her.

"Okay," she answered, puzzled, but willing. She took the other end and felt something, some sort of energy moving through the fabric and into her. She took a sharp breath of surprise and he nodded.

"Your parents aren't here, so we'll use my authority to do this, not exactly the approved method, but then we aren't the usual sort of couple are we?" he told her and she shook her head, still not knowing what he was up to. "Rose Marion Tyler, as the Head of my Family, I hereby wed you by the laws and customs of Gallifrey," he informed her and she could feel something happening in her heart and in her mind, it was faint, but very definitely there. "Do you agree to wed me?"

"I do," she affirmed and he grinned at her. The energy flowed back from her and into him and now he was the one who gasped and looked at her with widening eyes.

"Well, that was unexpected," he murmured and then leaned down and kissed her. Once more she felt the faint trail of something moving through her and when he drew back he was smiling.

"Was that supposed to happen?" she asked, knowing he'd understand what she was talking about.

"If we were both Time Lords, it would have been far stronger, a true bonding between us, or the beginning of one anyway. Rand told me it was like being hit by an asteroid, or dragged under by a deep wave, when he married Malla," he explained and she frowned.

"Who?"

"Randarian and Mallafressia were students of my Mum's years ago," he explained, his face going melancholy from the memories he carried. "They were the only couple I knew that had a bonding of any real depth." She nodded her understanding.

"So, if we'd both been Time Lords, it would have been stronger?" she asked, wondering if that was another reason the other Doctor hadn't been willing to marry her. She wasn't a Time Lord and she wasn't telepathic. She was only human and there were things that she could never be for him.

"I honestly didn't expect there to be anything at all, but you always surprise me, Rose Tyler," he told her.

"Wait, shouldn't I be Mrs. Doctor, now?" she protested and he blinked at her in surprise.

"No, why?"

"Well, we're married; don't I take your name?"

"Of course not!" he replied. "Gallifrey had a completely equal society, as far as gender goes! Women and men were able to do all the same jobs and there was none of that name changing to denote ownership foolishness!" he assured her, offended by the very thought of it, and she suddenly had a deep fondness for a world long destroyed.

"How lovely," she replied.

"Now that we're married though, if you like, you can call me "Theta Sigma", now and again," he told her with a touch of shyness.

"Is that your name?" she asked in confusion and he shrugged.

"One of them," he told her and she rolled her eyes at him. "It's complicated, Rose, but I have several names and only a few of them can be spoken aloud without terrible consequences. The day I have to speak my true name, something very bad will have happened. I hope that I never am forced to." She could see the serious look on his face, the "oncoming storm" look in his eyes and nodded her understanding.

"So, Theta Sigma, where shall we go for our honeymoon?" she asked him and he grinned again, suddenly her laughing Doctor once more.

"Well, first we probably ought to grovel for Jackie a bit, because I think that pillar of fire heading in our direction is probably her," he pointed out and she turned to see a Zeppelin headed towards them and she imagined that her mother's strident tones could be heard exhorting the crew to greater speed.

"Yeah, a bit of groveling might be in order," she agreed and he held her hand and looked down at her with a tender smile.

"Together my dear wife, we shall face down all terrors, all dangers, defeat evil, fight for the right, and even, if we are very, very lucky, we shall survive your mum's wrath!" he teased and she laughed. "And if Theta Sigma is too much of a mouthful, you can always call me the other traditional names for a husband," he assured her.

"Such as?"

"Oh you know, 'Honey', 'Dearest', 'Idiot', 'You Lump', 'Why I Didn't Listen to My Mother and Marry a Lawyer', all the usual ones," he informed her.

So, when her mother came up to them, they were both doubled over laughing and she just shot them both a look of utter disgust and shrugged.

"Get in the zeppelin and let's go, you two!" she ordered and still giggling, they boarded.

* * *

He stood by the zeppelin window, Rose's hand in his, and thought about something he hadn't thought about in a very long time. Limitations.

He'd been the Last Time Lord, the Oncoming Storm, for so long that he'd lost some of his perspective. It was a sobering realization. He was teetering on the edge of becoming the Valeyard and that was terrifying.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" Rose asked him, peering up into his face.

"I've gotten arrogant, Rose," he admitted and she grinned at him.

"Arrogant? You? Never happen!" she teased, looking at him with laughter crinkling up the corners of her eyes.

"Seriously, Rose," he told her with a roll of the eyes and she subsided, giving him a level stare.

"You were a bit more autocratic there at the end than I've seen you in a while. But you were also a lot sadder than I've ever seen you before. You looked like you were dying inside." He nodded, that was a good description for how the other him had been feeling. He had been closely enough linked to him to still feel his emotions, everything, from the grief, to the bitter sick jealousy the other had felt, when Rose had kissed him. The worst had been the resignation, the way the other him had just given up, accepting that he was going to be alone and not even wanting to find someone else.

"Yeah, that's what scares me the most. He was despairing. I'm really worried about what he might do now." It occurred to him to wonder if that wasn't another reason they'd been left in this whole other universe. Whatever happened next, they were safely out of it.

"Oh Doctor," she sighed, eyes closing in pain, hand clutching his. He wasn't certain which one of them she meant just then, but then they were both going to have to cope with new realities. He was going to have to adjust to being half-human and the other him was going to have to deal with the horrible guilt of what he'd have to do to Donna, of what he'd have to take from her

River Song's face from the Library came back to him. The way she'd looked at Donna, the grief and sorrow in her face. She'd known and she'd known how it would destroy him, tear him up inside to be the agent of Donna's destruction.

Because, even if she lived and had a long life, he'd have killed that Donna, a different woman would walk away from him, a woman who wouldn't remember being brilliant, being brave, being the only human being in all the universe who would have held that plunger with him. No one else had ever taken up his burdens with him, not even Rose, though had she been there, he knew she would have. But it had been Donna, standing there beside him in that fire. It had been Donna who called him back from the far distant place in his soul and made him remember who he was. Rose had reawakened his soul, brought him back to life, to love, but Donna had been the conscience in his head, the angry voice of his inner self. His best mate.

"Is there a Donna in this universe?" he asked and Rose blinked at him in surprise.

"I suppose. I never really bothered to find out. The timelines were all tangled around your Donna, not this one, so it didn't much matter to me," she admitted and he could hear the undertone of embarrassment that her single-minded pursuit of him had blinded her to anything else for a time.

"It doesn't matter, even if she is here, she won't know who I am, won't be the same person at all. My Donna was who she was because of everything we went through together. This one won't be her." He shook his head and sighed out. "None of them will be. Sarah Jane, Harry, the Brigadier, Jo, Barbara, Ian, Polly, Steven, Dodo, Ace, none of them will know who I am; none of them will be the people I remember. I have no history here."

"So, let's make a new history, you and me," she told him and he grinned at her.

"Brilliant!" he told her and kissed her again, banishing the sorrows of the past and embracing the future.

"So, he said that you were all blood and fire and anger, but I'm not seeing much of that," she told him and he sighed out.

"Oh well, I'm angry all right. I'm furious, but my anger is the anger of a human being. I'm angry at fate for hurting Donna. I'm angry that he doesn't get to have a happy ending. I'm furious that he thinks that letting the Daleks live was a good idea. After all, that worked out so well in the past!" he growled. "I had the chance to destroy them once before and didn't do it. Because of that my world, my family, and many of my dearest friends all died. Genocide sounds so terrible, but that never stopped the Daleks from killing all those other races!" He shook his head. "That's the problem with being a Time Lord, you live too long. You start to see things through the lens of history, instead of seeing the suffering that's right in front of you," he shouted.

"Okay, I can see what he meant now," she told him with a small laugh. He throttled back on the anger and felt a touch awkward.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," Rose assured him. "I want to marry you, Doctor, that means 'for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer,' remember?"

"Yeah, also "for snarkier or for nicer," he joked. She giggled and nodded.

"It's okay, though, it's nice to know what you're thinking and feeling, the other you keeps it all locked up inside and half the time I didn't really know what was going on with him. I like this," she admitted and he grinned down at her.

"I like this too," he told her and kissed her again. Land and sea passed by beneath them, clouds swirled above, but they really only saw each other.


	3. Chapter 3

Trainer Wars

"Not to a wedding!" Jackie shouted and the Doctor smiled, displaying the pure white trainers with great pride.

They were in the living room at Pete and Jackie's house. Large comfy floral couches, cabbage rose wallpaper and white trim, it was all rather middle class, but there was something homey about it. The house could have been an intimidating show place, but this Jackie just wanted a nice home. Nothing too flash, just a place that was warm and inviting. She'd done a good job of it too, Rose thought.

"I also found a pair in black, in case you wanted a more formal look," he assured her and she rolled her eyes, while Rose hid her own smile.

"I said 'no trainers', how hard is that to understand?" she retorted, sounding frazzled and Rose watched the man she'd already married working his way around her Mum with a smile.

"I found twenty different web sites that sell "Wedding Trainers", six Pintrest boards about it, and several blogs that describe people's wedding trainers!" he enthused and Jackie dropped her head down into her hands.

"Bloody internet!" she cursed and stormed out of the room.

"I think you won that round," Rose informed him with a grin. "But she will find a way to make you pay for this, you know," she warned him and his expression turned worried.

"I'm going to wear comfortable running shoes to our wedding," he informed her. Rose tilted her head and studied him.

"Wedding trainers, you say?"

"I found some ladies' ones with rhinestones," he tempted her, face hopeful, and she burst out laughing. She really loved this man, no matter how many hearts he had.

"Let's see them," she agreed. After all, why not drive poor Jackie mad over both of them, rather than just him. She had to stand by her man, didn't she? Damn the torpedoes, she decided.

"Oh, you'll love these ones!" he enthused, running to her laptop and typing away madly.

"Since when did you love to shop, by the way?" she asked him and he grinned up at her.

"Donna gave me more than just human ingenuity, you know. I can find a bargain sale like a beagle can find a fox!" he crowed, bouncing around the room like a toddler on a sugar high.

"Well, that will come in handy, my salary at Torchwood is impressive, but it will have to cover two of us until you find a job," she sighed, thinking about rent on her Chelsea Flat and the expense of getting the Doctor a proper wardrobe.

"Why can't I work at Torchwood too?" he asked. "I'd like going to work with you every day and if Pete's running the place, it won't be the dark, corrupt, pit of evil and stupidity that it was in our universe. I bet with Pete running it, it's brilliant!" he enthused.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Pete laughed as he came into the room. "I was going to ask you to come work in our Alien Artifact Identification Labs, to help us figure out what some of the stuff we have actually is, or if it's dangerous or not."

"Oh, that sounds brilliant!" the Doctor answered with a grin. "I would also really love to make you lot a few nice toys," he added and they looked at him in surprise. "Not weapons or anything like that!" he assured them and they both relaxed. "But, I've been thinking…"

"That sounds dangerous," Pete quipped.

"Actually, it sounds terrifying," Rose corrected and the Doctor pouted at them both.

"Fine, if you don't want your field agents to have a simplified sonic screwdriver, then I don't have to make any for them," he informed them with a haughtily raised eyebrow.

"Doctor, are you serious?" Pete asked, practically drooling, and Rose was staring at the Doctor in shock.

"But, Doctor it's your sonic…" she didn't have words for what she was feeling. It was such a personal part of him.

"My sonic could save lives, Rose. How many Torchwood agents get killed because they can't scan a room for life signs?" he asked and Pete winced. "I could help, really help here, Rose. Nothing too far advanced, nothing that would really change human history, but I could relieve at least a little suffering. I can identify aliens, heck I can talk to them! I speak pretty much every language in the universe, I can read millions of different writing systems, and I can build computers, devices, machines, that could make Earth a safer, happier place." He was looking at her with pleading in his eyes and she was shocked to her core by what he was saying.

"What happened to non-interference?" she asked him and he grinned.

"That's just it! I don't know what this universe's future holds! I can't see any fixed points that would prevent my helping out here, in fact, for all I know I am a fixed point! I could be a historical necessity, you know!" he was bouncing around the room again and there was a freedom in him she'd never seen before. "I have no TARDIS, there are no more Time Lords, no Gallifrey, nothing to tell me if it's the wrong thing to do or not. Is it wrong? I don't know! I can muck about like a normal person, figuring it out as I go along! I can do anything, within limits of course," he assured her. "I don't want to give you lot tech that could annihilate the human race by accident or anything!"

"Glad to hear it," Pete replied with an amused expression. He was leaning on the door jamb, watching the Doctor with a fond smile on his face, but Rose could almost see his mind working.

"Tell you what, six months on identification, where you train my people how to figure things out, and then I will create a whole R and D division just for you, where you can make whatever you think it's safe for the human race to have. Just no cyber-conversions, or anything like that, because I really don't want to lose this Jackie as well," he told him, his voice going serious and grave at the last part, and the Doctor nodded, his own mood dampened by that reminder.

"It's a deal, Pete." Rose watched her Dad leave with a pensive expression on her face. She was torn. On the one hand she was gob-smacked by the possibilities that the Doctor was envisioning, but at the same time, she was wondering what the other Doctor would have thought about all of this and she was pretty sure he would not be happy at all.

Still, he didn't have to live here, find a way to make a living, and stay put long enough to get really attached to people who were putting their lives on the line every day. She loved her Torchwood friends. She wanted them to have every advantage; she wanted technology that would keep them all safe, she just didn't want the Doctor to be the one to give it to them, which made no sense at all.

"Rose?" the Doctor was looking at her, leaning sideways to see her face and she took a deep breath.

"I don't know why this feels so wrong to me," she admitted and he frowned.

"It's feels disloyal, doesn't it," he told her and she gasped. "You would have to admit that I could have done so much more, if I wasn't always in constant motion, that I had the attention span of a two-year-old and had spent so much of my life running away that I didn't know how to stop."

"Doctor," she protested, but he shook his head and kept going.

"You don't want to admit that I didn't like to take responsibility for anything, unless I had to, and that saving the world isn't always just about defeating monsters. Sometimes it's about making the world a better place, even when it's hard, even when it's dirty, laborious, and when it gets no thanks and no recognition."

"You were brilliant, you helped so many people!" she insisted.

"Oh Rose, running around being brilliant is a fun game, but it's a child's game, it isn't what adults do. Grown-ups feed their families; adults do the job every day, changing nappies, helping their neighbors, taking the time to get to know their co-workers. I have avoided being a grown-up for hundreds of years, I have made sure I didn't get too close, didn't feel too much, didn't give too much of myself."

"But, you and me, Doctor," she interrupted and he smiled suddenly, his face going soft as he looked at her, the sudden anger and self-loathing fading away.

"There is a very select group of people in the universe that I have ever really loved, Rose. Of them all, you're the only one still living." She winced as he said that and he turned to look out the window, staring off at something only he could see. "I love you and that scared the hell out of me before, because I really wasn't sure I could survive losing you, too. I'm still not sure I'd survive, Rose. So, I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe. This is the only world I'll ever have now and I will keep it safe too, and if that means changing some of the rules I've lived by up until now, that's fine. All the rules have already changed for me, after all. I can't just pick up and go, ignoring the consequences of my actions."

"You've never…!" she began and he spun and glared at her.

"Satellite Five, Rose!" he shouted and she stepped back from the naked fury in his eyes. The sudden anger shocked her, his mood swings had always been pretty fast, but this was unsettling. "I killed Max, but did I bother to find out who his bosses were? NO! I swanned off before the ending! Oh good show, mate, well done! Look, you did such a good job that the bloody Daleks were able to build a bleeding fleet and kill billions of people!"

"You couldn't have known!" she defended him.

"I bloody well should have known!" he shot back and she fell silent. It was true, after all, and she was just as guilty. They had simply trotted off, laughing, and it had nearly cost them both their lives.

"All right, I see what you're saying." She put out her hands, trying to calm and soothe him. He looked at her and just seemed to deflate, all the anger draining out of him suddenly, leaving him looking merely tired and sad.

"Oh Rose, I'm sorry. Nine hundred years of mistakes being run through a half-human brain, it's going to be a bit before I calm down, I think," he apologized and she nodded.

"I'm still here," she assured him and he stepped forward and hugged her. Face buried in her shoulder, he sighed out.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"Come on, let's go home," she told him and he looked at her in surprise.

"We don't live here?" he asked and she stared at him like he was dribbling on his shirt.

"With my Mum?" she said with horror in every syllable.

"Alright, I will take that as a 'no'," he chuckled.

"I have a lovely flat in Chelsea," she told him. "Let's run away while Mum is still fuming, but before she comes up with her plan for revenge."

Looking rather daunted by that thought, he followed her out to her car.

"No zeppelin?" he asked with a look of mock dismay and she laughed.

"I prefer four wheels on the ground, thank you very much!" she told him and he grinned.

* * *

Rose's car was a Torchwood issue Range Rover, black on black on back, he noted with a sigh. He missed Bessie suddenly with an acute ache in his chest. The modified Siva Edwardian, his spunky little yellow roadster, had gotten him through a lot of tough spots. He'd loved that car.

Climbing into Rose's car was like getting into a tank. A very comfy tank with a high end stereo system, he noted with interest. Very soon he was playing with the buttons, much to Rose's amusement and annoyance.

"Bloody hell, Doctor! Leave off with the AC, will you! I'm freezing!" she laughed and he subsided. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the TARDIS coral, and turned it in his fingers.

"Why did you tell Pete that you had no TARDIS?" she asked him, glancing at the mouse-sized lump in his hand.

"Because, this isn't a TARDIS, not yet, anyway. I mean, if I do what Donna suggested, if I shatterfry the plasmic shell and modify the dimensional stabilizer to a foldback harmonic of 36.3, accelerating growth by the power of 59, that leaves us with a fully grown TARDIS in pico-seconds, rather than the hundreds of years it took the Time Lords to do it, but the power needs would be huge, Rose. I have no idea how long it will take me to build the equipment we would need to do this. It could take me years to come up with a solution that won't fry the entire power grid of the British Isles. Then there are the physical aspects of it. I mean, I would need to build a proper console, and support structures, honestly, I need a TARDIS cradle for it to properly work," he nattered and she looked at him briefly.

"What's the real problem?" she asked him and he sighed out. He never could fool Rose.

"A TARDIS makes it really easy to run away and I'm not sure that I should have one until I've settled down here, made a real life for myself. I don't want to be that fellow who swans off anymore," he answered and she nodded.

"You won't be, whether you have a TARDIS or not, because you're half human now, Doctor. You're going to age with me, we're going to be human together and that means Christmas Dinner and Boxing Day, Queen's Speech, and Regatta Week. You won't be able to swan off because you're Jackie and Pete's son-in-law and that means something now. Someday you'll be a Dad and then a Granddad, and we'll sit on a porch somewhere rocking together and complaining about the music the kids listen to and how everything was better in our day," she chuckled, giving him her tongue in teeth grin and he nodded.

It was both exhilarating and terrifying, the life she was describing. Death would come for him, the Doctor, the man who'd escaped it so many times. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. But, at least, he'd face it with Rose. That was all right then.

"I trust you Rose, if you say that's how it'll be, then that's how it will be," he answered and she shot him a look of warm affection that made his heart skip a beat. He clutched his chest. "How do you people survive with just one heart!" he complained and she laughed.

It would all be fine. As long as they were together, he knew they would figure it all out.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N - This is a short chapter, but I have a lot for the next sequence and this just ended in the right spot.

Coming Home

Rose was nervous. After all, the Doctor had all of time and space to offer her and all she could give him was her love and a flat in Chelsea. She wasn't sure it was an equal trade.

Pete's Coutts World Card was still in her purse and she knew that he wouldn't mind if she took the Doctor shopping for a few necessities, but for all that he considered her his daughter and wanted to lavish everything on her that he hadn't been able to do while she was growing up, she felt weird about taking money from him. Still, if the Doctor was about to make him as rich as the look on Pete's face told her he was, there was no reason to skimp just then.

"Let's take a slight detour," she told him and he nodded, still more interested in reading the manual for her car than anything else.

They pulled over on Brompton Road and she handed the car over to the valet at Harrods, with a smile.

"Miss Tyler," they greeted her and the Doctor looked around in surprise.

"My Dad's a famous millionaire, of course they know me," she explained and he looked at her with his eyebrow up, a bit flummoxed by the thought.

"Hadn't considered that aspect," he replied and fell silent as the doorman opened for her with a bow and a smile.

"Miss Tyler."

"Hi Benny," she answered with a wink. "How's the wife?"

"She don't know about the girlfriend, so that's all right," he joked and she chuckled at him. The Doctor smiled at Benny, one of his infectious grins, and the doorman grinned back.

"Benny, eh?"

"Actually, he adores his wife, and buys her a trinket from the counters every day before he leaves work," she told him and he smiled at her with warmth and affection in his eyes.

"That's my Rose," he told her with pride and she blushed a bit. For her, talking to people, getting to know them, it was just what you did. You made friends, you helped people, that was just how things were. His admiration of what she just thought of as normal still threw her off sometimes.

It was like what she had told Donna before. He made you see that you were brilliant. Just by being around him, you felt smarter, better, and you wanted to be the person he saw when he looked at you. You never wanted to disappoint him.

The wandered into menswear and her Mum's personal shopper materialized beside her.

"Did you need any help today, Miss Tyler?" she asked.

"Hey Tabitha, this is my friend, his flat burned down and he lost all his gear. He's coming to work for Dad this week, so we're picking up the tab," she told the platinum blonde with her perfect nails and sleek black suit. Putting up a hand so the Doctor couldn't hear, she whispered the rest. "He's a ruddy brilliant physicist and inventor and Dad expects to make a mint off of him, so could you make him presentable?"

Tabitha's eyes brightened as the unspoken "money is no object" played through her mind.

"Well, he's quite good looking, so it shouldn't be hard," she purred and Rose looked at the Doctor as though she hadn't quite seen him before.

"You know, you're right, he is pretty gorgeous," she acknowledged. The Doctor, who was inspecting some ties, looked up at the two of them in a bit of alarm. Women in a clothing store, looking at a fellow and whispering, apparently set off some masculine alarm system that crossed the boundaries of races. Even Time Lords weren't immune to that sort of terror.

"Hmm?" he enquired, obviously trying not to look panicked.

"Tabitha here will take care of getting you some clothes, Doctor," she told him and his look of alarm changed to one of genuine fear.

"Um," he muttered as he backed away from the elegant buyer.

"She doesn't bite and I have some shopping to do as well. He'll need everything, I'm afraid, suits, ties, trainers, briefs, socks, everything!" she called back cheerfully and left him to Tabitha's tender mercies.

The look on his face boded ill for her later, but she was chortling as she left. After all, he'd need a toothbrush, hairbrush, and all that sort of thing. Whistling a jaunty air, Rose went shopping.

* * *

The Doctor was fairly certain that a juicy steak felt much the way he did just then when it saw a tiger approaching it.

"Now, what sort of things do you like?" Tabitha asked him and relaxed a bit.

"I like suits, t-shirts, ties, and dress shirts, I like blue, brown, and red and I only wear trainers," he told her and she smiled at him.

"Not a problem," she assured him and whisked him off to a posh dressing room. Once he was ensconced on a plush settee, a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits were provided for him. So far, the experience was actually quite pleasant.

A large assortment of suits were paraded before him and he accepted or rejected them while engaging in polite banter with Tabitha and her assistants, two sweet-faced shop girls named Ginger and Sally. By the end of an hour he had a complete new wardrobe and three new friends. He was in the middle of playing Agony Aunt for Ginger when Rose popped her head in and smiled.

"All done?" she asked and the girls all fluttered off. He rose and walked over to her.

"That was actually quite fun! I was a bit nervous at first, but I got to do shopping and tea and I really think Ginger is going to finally stand up to that rum bloke of hers! She is too sweet a girl to be with a fellow who doesn't treat her right!" he informed her and Rose grinned at him and hugged him quickly.

"You're adorable," she chuckled and he smiled "Let's get the car and go then, shall we?"

"What about the packages?" he asked and she grinned.

"Oh, they'll have loaded the car for us already!" she assured him and slipped her hand into his. When Rose held his hand, everything was better.

* * *

Rose took a deep breath and pulled into the drive. The Doctor was looking around at everything with interest and enthusiasm, but she wasn't sure how long that would last. He would be making a really big adjustment in lifestyle. Right now it was all new, but she wondered how long it would be before the need to start running overcame him.

She pulled the keys from her purse and watched him carefully as he turned around, taking in the yard, the street, and the neighbors, his eyes cataloguing everything with a smile and twinkling eyes.

She unlocked the front door, stepped through and turned off the alarm.

"The code is "Type 40"," she told him with a grin and he chuckled.

"I think I can remember that," he teased and looked around the hallway. There was nothing in it really and she led the way past a nearly empty living room and into a barren kitchen. "You seem to be on a minimalist bent, these days," he commented and she winced.

"I have spent most of my time being focused on the dimension cannon, decorating the flat seemed pointless when I thought I wouldn't be staying here," she told him and saw the flash of pain and anger in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Rose. If you want, I'll get the coral turned into a TARDIS as fast as I can and then I'll take you anywhere you want," he promised, but she shook her head.

"No. It's good this way. At least for now," she told him, smiling up into his eyes. "Tomorrow we'll go furniture shopping. We'll do it together, like a proper married couple, me looking at everything three times and you falling asleep in one of the chairs. We'll argue about what we want and compromise on something neither of us really likes, but that neither of us hates, and we'll go home and set it all up, okay?" He looked at her, his eyes filled with mirth and love, and so much more and she grinned at him, suddenly so happy she could hardly bear it.

"That sounds perfect, Rose Tyler," he told her and took her face gently in his hands and kissed her. "I'm going to love being married to you."

He kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Heat flared between them and when he pulled back, breathing heavily, she grinned.

"Yeah, me too. But, that's tomorrow. Tonight, I have other plans," she informed him and he grinned back at her.

"Now that sounds quite promising!" he laughed and looking up into those eyes she loved so much, all her concerns fled. Whatever may come, they'd face it together, as husband and wife.

Rose Tyler and the Doctor, in their flat in Chelsea.

Which was wasn't bad at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Torch Song

He was nervous. It was, after all, his first wedding night in several hundred years. The last one had been pretty awful, he recalled. No longer having to pretend to love him, his beautiful young wife had expressed her boredom and contempt for the process of generating a new generation, and he'd been left disillusioned and acutely miserable.

Not the best thing to be thinking about just then, he realized, as Rose led him to her bedroom. This room was better furnished. There was an actual bed, a dresser, and a vanity with photos scattered across it. He paused to look at the frozen beats in the rhythm of time. Jackie and Pete, arms around each other, grinning hugely, Mickey and an elderly woman who must be the Gran he'd spoken of, another one of Mickey with Jake Simmonds, the boy who'd helped them fight the Cybermen, a picture of himself and Rose, heads back laughing at something, a photo of a red-headed baby lying in a crib, Tony, he guessed, other friends he didn't know and several more photos of himself and her.

"I got them from surveillance cameras," she explained. "It was hard to find ones where we weren't screaming or running, but there were a few."

"You didn't exactly have time to pack." It hurt so much to think of that moment. "I pressed my face against that wall and waited, you know. For eight hours," he admitted and she stepped into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder, and he could feel that fledgling connection flaring between them.

"I was there waiting with you. I kept thinking that I'd hear the TARDIS any moment, that you'd figure out something brilliantly clever and be along any moment," she sighed and he nodded.

"If only the Master hadn't died," he said and she looked at him in surprise.

"What?"

"I found another Time Lord, Rose, still alive. Not just any Time Lord either, but the Master, my oldest and dearest childhood friend. If anyone could have built a Dimensional Anchor and gotten across to you, it was him. If I only could have gotten through to him and made him see." He shook his head, trying to clear it of the pain and loss.

"Gotten through to him?" she asked and he gave her a small tight smile.

"He'd gone completely bang off his head," he told her. "But for a while there, at the end of time, he was the man I used to know, the brilliant, kind, funny, compassionate, gentle boy from my childhood again. I had several hours to feel the way I used to, to have my best mate back and then he was gone again." The pain of the disconnection between Professor Yana and the Master was too terrible to contemplate. Who he really was, the real man underneath, was the gentle, selfless Yana, and that had hurt. It hurt to be reminded of who the Master used to be.

"And he died?" she asked, her eyes on him so gentle and tender.

"Yeah. Oh Rose, for a moment I wasn't the only one and then the silence came crashing down on me again and it was almost as bad as losing you. I'd hoped I could save him, that together we could save you, and then that hope was gone again."

"Oh Doctor," she sighed out and snuggled closer to him. He wrapped himself around her and chuckled.

"What a thick git I am. I have a beautiful young wife, it's my wedding night, and I'm talking about my dead friends! Way to ruin a moment, Martian Boy, as Donna would say," he teased and Rose grinned up at him.

He kissed her and again it felt as though he was falling, like she was a gravity well and he was a meteor, just sucked into her with no way to achieve escape velocity and no desire to do so. Her hands were moving across his back and it occurred to him that they were both wearing way too many clothes.

He shrugged out of his jacket and she grinned up at him, that smile that made his knees go weak and his heart pound. Everything he'd dreamed of for so long, it was all right here.

He intended to make the most of it.

* * *

Agent Geneva Murray listened to her boss's explanation with a sense of foreboding.

"So, he's an alien, he's getting married to your daughter, and he's both brilliant and erratic," she summarized and he gave her a weary smile in response.

"That's about it, yeah," Pete Tyler nodded and Geneva very carefully didn't sigh.

"I'll get the paperwork started," she told him and he dismissed her. She stepped out into the hallway and found a skinny, somewhat vague looking man, in a brown pinstriped suit, hands in his pockets, hopping on one foot up and down the corridor. He had a shock of brown hair that stuck up all over and mild brown eyes in a narrow angular face.

"Doctor?" she asked, quite certain that this must be the alien that Pete was talking about. He turned around and smiled broadly at her, his eyes crinkling.

"Yes?"

"I'm Agent Murray, I'll be helping you get set up," she informed him and he cocked his head, studying her with interest.

"Lead on!" he told her with a grin and a wave of his hand and she escorted him to her office.

He flopped into the chair across from her desk and she pulled the payroll database up on her computer.

"Name?"

"The Doctor."

"Doctor who?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"The Doctor."

"I don't understand."

"My name is 'the Doctor', that's it, nothing else," he explained with a look of amusement on his face.

"I have three blank places on these forms, Doctor. First name, middle initial, and last name. I need two of the three, at least, to be filled," she explained patiently.

"John Smith will do, it always has before," he told her with an airy wave and she closed her eyes for a moment, counting to ten before opening them again.

"John Smith. Really? Advanced alien intelligence and John Smith is the best you can do?" she asked him and he chuckled.

"Actually Jamie came up with the name and I just never bothered to find another one. It doesn't really matter anyway, it's not a real name, after all," he explained, still smiling, and she simply nodded and gave in, typing 'Smith, John' on the form.

"Age?"

"Nine hundred and six," he answered and she stared at him. "No, really, that's my age. Not a real name, but certainly a real number," he assured her openly grinning now. She sighed and typed in '35'. Payroll was going to have enough problems without trying to calculate his age to retirement based on his actual age.

"Address?"

"I'm living with Rose Tyler in her flat in Chelsea," he answered and Geneva nodded, filling in the information from the drop down file.

"Job history?"

"Well," he drawled and scratched his ear. "I was scientific adviser to UNIT in a different universe, but mostly I traveled the universe solving problems and saving planets and such." Geneva sighed and thought for a bit.

"Freelance Consultant," she told him and typed that in as well. He chuckled.

"I like that, Agent Murray. You're clever!" he complimented her and she found her lips twitching in response. He was charming; you had to give him that.

"I'll have your Passport, Driving License, Bank Card, Credit Card and National ID Card for you by the end of the day. Your Gun License will take a few days to process and require a range test, all right?"

"I won't need a gun license, as I don't use a gun," he explained to her and she blinked.

"Torchwood operatives are required to be proficient in a weapon and to be capable of defending themselves at all times," she quoted the manual at him and he smiled, but it wasn't the charming grin from before, it was sad, bitter, and painful.

"I fought in the Last Great Time War, Agent Murray," he informed her and she gave him a puzzled look. "I spent two hundred years fighting the most terrible enemy the universe has ever faced, I killed and I survived, when no other member of my race did. I did that and yet, never picked up a gun in the whole two hundred years. I have never needed a gun to defend myself. That doesn't mean I am not proficient in a weapon. I can fence, I can shoot, and I can use a trebuchet, a spear, a gladius, and half a dozen other weapons. I just choose not to. I will never carry a gun." His face and voice had gone bleak and hard and she could hear the echo of great suffering in him.

"Fine, no gun license. However, I will be setting you up with our therapist. You have a serious case of PTSD and survivor's guilt, you need to see someone," she told him without expression and he stared at her for a long moment before smiling at her in a far more natural manner.

"You're brilliant," he informed her and she smiled at him. "I'll assume that your therapist has dealt with aliens before?" he asked and she nodded.

"He has extensive experience in fact," she told him.

"I've no idea if he'll be able to do anything with me, but it'll be nice to talk to someone," he teased and she could just see the Doctor ending up with the therapist as his patient rather than the other way around. She was starting to like him, but she could already see a whole lot of extra paperwork being generated by his every action.

* * *

The Doctor strolled into the Alien Artifact Identification Labs and looked around in curiosity. A group of rather earnest young humans stared back at him with varying degrees of hope and confusion.

He walked over to a bin filled with random chunks of alien material and sighed. With a bored air, he began sorting through it, tossing things onto the table with a feeling of gloom settling on him.

"Flux capacitor, charger for a type 17 laser pistol, Resurrection Glove – dangerous and not worth the bother, really. This is a Shimmer Ring, this is just a Sontaran version of a thermos, this one's a recording device from Altair. Oh! A Gristard harpsichord - rather rare and in good condition too! A couple of nano assemblers – useful those, some wiring from a Devorax Trans-Mat system, and a bag of freeze-dried food that would only be useful if you were really desperate and didn't mind eating eyeballs," he informed them and went to the next bin. They all stood there looking at him and he sighed. "You might want to write this all down, or something."

The humans rushed to get paper and pens and began taking notes as he went through the rest of the bins.

By the end of the day he'd gotten through half their backlog and his co-workers were looking up at him with wondering and adoring eyes. He was finding that having a bunch of tech geeks idolize you was actually rather fun. He was laughing and making friends by the end of it.

This job thing really wasn't so bad as all that, he decided.

* * *

Rose looked up as the Doctor slid down the banister and landed on his feet, trainers squeaking a bit on impact and grinned at her. The Lobby of Torchwood One was filled with various personnel and they all looked rather surprised by his unorthodox mode of travel, except for a knot of white coated lab techs, who waved good-bye to him cheerfully.

"Hello! Did you have a nice day at work?" he asked.

"I did, and did you?" she chortled.

"Brilliant! Found some fun little toys, dismantled three bombs, and kept a nice young technician named Joey from almost blowing up the planet. He was using a thermonuclear implosion cube to heat his tea," he explained cheerfully and Rose blanched.

"Glad that you had fun," she told him, still a bit stunned and he spun around in a circle and bounced a few times.

"I like working!" he told her with a child-like enthusiasm. "Having co-workers is brilliant!"

She found herself laughing and several people stared at her in shock. It occurred to her that in her obsessive search for the Doctor, she'd been a bit distant and not exactly the life of the party. She grinned at those staring and they smiled back uncertainly. She was going to start enjoying her life again, not just waiting and working. She needed to chase her happiness, starting with taking her husband home and being domestic.

They were both really starting to like being domestic.


	6. Chapter 6

Being the News

The Doctor was used to being invisible. However, when you were a mystery man who'd suddenly shown up and moved straight into the flat of one Rose Tyler, famous daughter of a famous father, and highly sought after marital prize, that was impossible.

Rose dropped little hints to various friendly reporters and smiled at the paparazzi, holding his hand and looking smug. That was enough to make presses roll and flashes go off and the Doctor was rather daunted by the whole thing.

His morning paper had an article about him and he gaped at it in confusion.

"I attended MIT?" he asked Rose with a raised eyebrow and she grinned at him.

"Dad put together a whole history for you, it's fantastic! You're a brilliant physicist and inventor, very eccentric. You met me while I was attending a conference in America four years ago and we fell madly in love. But, I was still looking for my parents and didn't think it was fair to make you wait for me. Once I'd found them, we began corresponding and true love was rekindled!" She was laughing as she told him and he listened with growing surprise. It was so strange to even need a background.

"You know I would have waited a thousand years for you," he told her softly and she smiled at him, those warm brown eyes so filled with love that it made him melt inside.

"I will always find a way to you, Doctor, even when it's impossible," she told him and he leaned across the table to kiss his wife, joy swelling in his heart.

"Your mum called my cell phone today," he blurted out, remembering suddenly. "She has the wedding planning well in hand, apparently, and has picked out my suit. I can wear the trainers, but she's also picking out my groomsmen for me. The only one I know is Jake Simmonds, the others are your cousins, apparently."

"Told you she'd get her revenge," she reminded him and he shuddered.

"Your cousins are nice?" he asked and she gave him a look that indicated otherwise. "Oh dear," he sighed out. He was coming to realize that Jackie Tyler was a terrifying creature.

Making her angry could have been a very bad choice.

* * *

Rose kept the smile plastered on her face as she walked with her Mum into the bridal shop. They had won the trainer battle, but the war was going in Jackie Tyler's favor.

Rose had never been thrilled about the idea of a white dress with lots of beads, ribbons, poofs, and other nonsense on it. She'd been hoping for a simple sheath dress or maybe something else simple and clean looking. She's tried suggesting that they use Mum's old wedding dress, it was simple and rather sweet looking, but Mum had nixed that one rather quickly with a glare.

"Here we are!" Jackie announced with a broad smile and a joyful light in her eyes. Rose found herself forgiving her mother rather quickly. After all, she was the only daughter that Jackie was ever likely to have. This was her one chance to do this.

"Okay, Mum," she answered, dropping a kiss on her head. "I love you, you know," she murmured and her mother looked up at her with a smile.

"I know, Rose. I love you too." They went inside together and Rose braced herself for a very long afternoon. "I hired David Tutera to do the wedding, by the way," she mentioned and Rose blinked in surprise.

"Really? That sounds amazing!" she enthused. "I love his show!"

Suddenly the wedding seemed a bit more like fun and less like a prolonged torture. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, after all.

* * *

The Doctor stared at the pile of objects with a feeling of gloom coming over him. He knew what it all was, he just had no idea how to safely dispose of some of it.

"What should we do?" asked Tibbs, the senior tech. With his plump face, sweaty hands, and round-eyed expression of bemusement, it would be easy to underestimate Tibbs' first class mind, but the Doctor was finding him indispensable.

"I don't suppose we have a handy black hole we can dump this all into?" he asked with his arms crossed and his chin tucked down. Tibbs chuckled ruefully and shook his head.

"Sorry, Doctor, an incinerator is the best we can arrange," he answered and the Doctor sighed.

"I suppose I could build a stasis vault for it, we've got most of the parts, but I would need a temporal inhibitor and I haven't got one of those," he muttered and the techs eyed him with interest.

The TARDIS coral in his pocket tempted him. If he had a working TARDIS he could just take the dangerous materials and dump them into the sun, or a black hole, or whatever. It would simplify everything.

He bit his lip and fought the temptation. No. He was going to stick it out, walk the slow path, be an adult, and be the husband that Rose deserved. He was human now, with only one life. The things he'd done before had been dangerous, he'd gotten people killed doing it. He wasn't going to risk the future he was building with Rose for the sake of making things a little easier.

He knew himself; he couldn't resist the siren call of danger. If he got out there and someone needed him, he'd drop everything to save their world. He made himself think about Adric, to remember his death and use that to fight off the nearly overwhelming desire to grow his TARDIS.

"Doctor?" Toshiko tried to get his attention back and he grinned at his people. He really was starting to like his team. Michael Tibbs had perfect recall, anything you told him he could repeat back to you, even years later and he seemed to know where every bit an bob of technology was stored. He listened to everything the Doctor said and was learning the tricks of artifact identification at a rapid pace.

Toshiko Sato was one of the Doctor's personal discoveries. She'd been working in the computer lab and he'd stopped to chat with her and found a mind that could pull apart a problem and rebuild it with a nearly intuitive grasp of systems and function that was genius level. He'd dragged her down to artifacts instantly. When he started his R and D project, he was definitely taking her with him. She was a slender, rather mousy Japanese girl, with long dark hair, nervous eyes, and a fragile beauty he hoped some fellow would notice one day.

Suzie Costello was the best they had with analyzing weapons, but the Doctor had his doubts about her at times. She was a little too obsessive and he'd had to destroy the gauntlet of resurrection when he found her playing with it. She'd been irritated with him, but seemed to be getting over it. She was a little too blasé about the dangers of some of the devices and he found that he didn't trust her.

Stevie Hicks though, he was a good-natured fellow with a love of science fiction. He would have been a typical geek boy, except that he was good-looking, charming, and a bit of a Don Juan. He had dark hair and eyes and a smooth delivery that had the females of the species flocking to him. All in all, they were a great team, even moody Suzie, and he was enjoying his time working with them.

He pulled out a tablet and began punching in the specs for a replacement and quickly ran into problems.

"I could probably build one, but it would take a lot of power to run and be incredibly expensive," he muttered.

Toshiko frowned at his specs and pointed at the energy capacitor.

"Well, maybe if you used that black disc here, you said it magnified energy, right?" she asked and the Doctor grinned at her.

"Brilliant! You are absolutely brilliant!" he told her and with a grin they all ran to the storage area and began pulling the parts they needed.

* * *

A few hours later they had it almost completely assembled, with even Suzie showing enthusiasm for the task.

"Doctor?" Pete's voice cut through their excited chatter and he looked up at his father in law with a smile.

"Mr. Tyler," he addressed him, being careful to show the proper formality while he was in 'employee mode'.

"What exactly are you building there?"

"A stasis chamber for some of the more dangerous and unstable items," he explained and Pete nodded his comprehension.

"Sounds good, look we've got an alien down in holding, none of us speak his language, I don't suppose you could come and have a chat with it?" Pete asked and the Doctor nodded.

"Allons-y!" he cried and handed his sonic to Toshiko to finish the job. She grinned at him and waved as he darted out, though the others were still rather consumed by the project and merely nodded or made indeterminate hand gestures.

He followed Pete down the hallway.

"So, what brings the Boss down to ask me in person?" he enquired and Pete grinned at him.

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" Pete teased and the Doctor smiled at him.

"Nine hundred years of experience with people, Pete," he replied and then settled himself to wait.

"The Press has been very interested in you, I've fobbed them off with a falsified cover and I've done what I could to create a good paper trail for you, but someone really determined will eventually figure out that you don't really have a history here," Pete told him as they headed down to the holding cells.

"I understand, is there anything you need me to do?" the Doctor asked and watched as Pete's face went through several expressions as he tried to figure out how to phrase things.

"Try to keep a low profile. Smile and wave, but don't talk to reporters unless you are prepared to baffle them with tech talk, or something. Stick to the cover story as much as possible and please, please, please, don't drag Rose into anything too dangerous," he requested, with the last bits coming out rather softly. Glancing at Pete, the Doctor could see his genuine concern for his daughter.

"Pete, I don't have a TARDIS, I've got a job, helping to pay rent and all that, I'm doing my best to be a responsible adult. Really, I am. I wouldn't do anything to hurt Rose, you have to know that." He glanced over at Pete and saw the man nod his understanding. There were reservations still, but a basic trust in the Doctor that underlay everything and made it a bit easier to swallow.

"I do know that, Doctor," Pete agreed and then they walked down to the hall to the holding cells.

"Cell 7," Pete indicated and the guards opened up for them.

Inside was a tall green-scaled female in a jumpsuit.

"A Silurian! _Homo reptilia_!" the Doctor exclaimed and walked in with a smile. "Hello! I'm the Doctor, what's your name?" He asked, switching to the Silurians native speech as he did so. She looked up at him in surprise.

"I'm Professor Eldissa, a geo-surveyor," she informed him .

"Weren't you lot all sleeping? He asked next.

"Every thousand years or so, one of us goes up to take readings and that's when I got caught," she admitted with a chagrined look. He grinned.

"So, are your folks ready to be defrosted yet?" he asked and she shook her head.

"The temperature is still too cold here, my people would be quite uncomfortable, but we have noted a warming trend, so maybe in a hundred years," she shrugged and he nodded.

"Well, I've got some ideas about that, you know," he told her and she looked at him with interest in her black eyes. "I've been pondering the question for a long time and I'm sure that the two races could co-habit here, Humans and Silurians, alike." The scientist nodded at the Doctor, encouraging him to continue. "There are areas of the Earth too hot for humans, but with the application of the right technology could be made fruitful for your people. Plus, Mars could be terra-formed and humans and Silurians could both live there as well!" he told her and she smiled broadly.

"That sounds quite workable!" she enthused. "Though I must ask how it is that you know of us at all?" she asked and he grinned.

"I'm a Time traveler," he answered and she blinked at him in surprise. "I visited Earth back when your race was running about and saw you all head underground. I knew that eventually you would be coming back and so have been thinking about it for, oh, I guess, about four hundred years or so." Her eyes were wide in wonder as he talked and she made a round 'o' with her mouth.

"Humans have Time travel technology?" she asked and he grinned even more widely.

"Nope, not yet," he chuckled and she stared at him and then burst out laughing, getting the joke at last.

"I will make sure to tell the others what you are proposing," she told him. "If they will let me go home?" she looked dubious as she said that, but the Doctor just nodded.

"Not a problem, I'll get the paperwork for your release started and then we can talk about opening formal negotiations between the two races, okay?"

"Oh no, Doctor! Not yet. As I said, it will be a hundred years before my people are ready for revival. It will take that long for even the infrastructure to be put in place!" she protested and his face fell.

"Oh, I was so hoping that I could finally see the day when the two earth native races came together," he answered, realizing that in his human body, a hundred years would be too late for him. He'd be dead by then.

He hadn't thought too much about it, he knew, but his days were numbered. Another eighty years maybe and then he'd be gone. No more Doctor, at least in this universe. It hurt to think about.

Walking back to the office he saw a newspaper on the floor. He picked it up and saw a photo of himself and Rose walking out of Torchwood. It must have been taken the day before. All sorts of intensely personal speculations about his life and their relationship were part of the copy and he frowned.

He'd never been a celebrity before. He'd been famous and, more usually, infamous, but never a celebrity.

He wasn't sure that he liked it. He crumpled up the paper and thought about Rose. He loved her, wanted to be with her, to be her husband. This was the cost. He tossed the paper in the trash and marched back to his office.

It wouldn't be easy, he knew that now, there were things that hadn't occurred to him, or that he hadn't faced, but this was Rose, his Rose, the wonderful, amazing, pink and yellow human he'd given three hearts to. His two Time Lord hearts had been hers and now this single human heart was hers as well. She was worth the price.


	7. Chapter 7

Wedding Planning

"He was amazing! I'm not sure he isn't some sort of telepathic alien, or something!" Rose enthused. "It was like he could read my mind!" She was bouncing up and down, thrilled with her wedding planner and he smiled at her. He had no idea what she was talking about; his first wedding had been rubbish, actually. A highly formalized Gallifreyan ceremony followed by a stuffy gathering of important people, who none of them liked a laugh.

"I'm glad you had fun," he told her and she kissed him, derailing all of his thoughts and leaving him breathless. He drew her into his lap and returned the kiss with enthusiasm. This part of being with Rose was certainly not a problem for him. His first wife's cold indifference was being washed away by Rose's sweet enthusiasm and it was wonderful.

"I did!" She grinned and jumped up to dance and twirl around the room. "I thought it was going to be some terrible torture and instead it's become an adventure!"

"I love adventures!" he answered with a grin of his own. "So, I've been thinking about honeymoons, where do you want to go?" he asked and she grinned at him.

"I was thinking about Paris," she suggested. Did you know that in this universe they still have a French Monarchy? It's completely useless, of course, they don't rule anything at all, just breed horses, have mad affairs with supermodels, and pose for pictures, but they still have Versailles as an actual palace! They don't get paid anything by the government though, so they make their money by renting out some of the palaces they still own. Pete says we can stay at Petite Trianon for two weeks! What do you think?"

"Petite Trianon! Did you know that it was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel? A very nice fellow, if a bit of a one-track mind, he could never seem to talk about anything but classical architecture and how it was so much superior to the whole Baroque style. Well, you know me, I think if it's not Baroque, don't fix it! Louis XV made the little palace for Madame de Pompadour, but sadly, she died four years before it was finished, and so it was Madame du Barry, Louis' next mistress who lived there first, and a definite come down du Barry was, let me tell you, she wasn't half as bright as Reinette was. Later on, in 1774 I think, Louis XVI gave the château and its lands to Marie Antoinette for her to play houses in. Marie was a shy creature and Louis and his court were just too boisterous for her. We had lunch there several times, she was a funny little thing, rather sweet, but terribly naïve," he babbled, excited by the trip, but trailed to a close as he saw the look on Rose's face.

"No, I didn't know it was built for Madame de Pompadour," she answered and her face was closed and suddenly sad. Memory kicked in and he winced at his gaffe.

"Who never lived there!" he reminded her, trying to make her happy again, but she just crossed her arms and looked out the window.

"She'd be there though, every time I looked around." Rose's voice was strained and he stood up and wrapped his arms around her.

"You're the woman I want to marry, to have children with, and to grow old with, not her. I'm here with you now, because I fought to get back to you. I could have stayed in the past with her, but that's not what I wanted. I always worked to get back to you," he told her, trying to make her see how much he loved her.

She turned in his arms, burrowing into his embrace.

"Rationally I know that, I do. But there's always part of me that wonders what would have happened if she hadn't of died, would you have brought her aboard the TARDIS, would she have stayed?" Rose asked and he shook his head.

"I might have given her one quick trip, Rose, just to make up for what happened to her, but her life was already history. Her death was a fixed point. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn't have changed that, she had to die at forty-two and she had to die in Paris with Louis. She was a friend and I liked her, but she was dead and dust hundreds of years ago," he explained. "I've befriended a lot of people in history, people who were alive and vital while I knew them, but whom, after I left, returned to being pages in a history book. I knew Marco Polo, King Arthur, Nero, Saladin, Robespierre, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, President Lincoln, and so many others. Most of them I had to spend time with, knowing their fates, and having to remain silent. Could I tell poor Abe not to go to the theatre for a while? Of course not. I had to smile and wave and say good-bye, being grateful for the chance to know them, even briefly. All of the people I have met in history were already long dead when I met them. It's never stopped me from talking to them, laughing with them. I always felt so very blessed that I had an opportunity, a truly great privilege, to get to know them, even a little."

"Kissing them was just a side benefit?" she grumbled and he sighed.

"She kissed me and I was taken by surprise," he retorted. "Would you rather go somewhere else for our honeymoon? I'll go anywhere you like," he promised.

"How about Egypt, we can visit the pyramids," she suggested. He winced and then nodded. "What was that twitch for?" she asked.

"Last time I went to the pyramids, I ended up on Mars fighting an ancient evil alien," he confessed and she burst out laughing.

"Right, Egypt it is!" she decided. "If we're really lucky we could make a side-trip to Mars!"

* * *

The Doctor picked up a newspaper and smiled. The first page story was about corruption in Afghanistan, written by Sarah Jane Smith. How delightful, he thought to himself. She was still herself in this universe. The astringent tones and succinct writing was like listening to her talk to him.

He put it down and sighed. The urge to call her up was strong, but she wouldn't know who the stranger on the line was and he wasn't certain that he could bear looking into her eyes and seeing blank incomprehension. He'd resisted the urge to visit any of them, actually. He'd seen Donna going to work one morning, chattering away on her cell phone, and it had made him both very glad and very sad. They were all people that he'd cared for, travelled with, some of whose lives he'd utterly destroyed, and whom he'd ultimately had to abandon in a completely different universe. It wasn't as though they would know who he was and maybe they were better off without him in their lives anyway.

He'd turned Martha into a soldier, Donna had her memories removed, and Sarah Jane had wasted much of her life waiting for him to come back. No. It was better this way.

"What would you call this thing?" Tosh asked him, pushing her glasses up her nose with her fingers again. The Doctor focused on the device in her hands and sighed.

"I'd call it an alien hand grenade that you have just inadvertently armed," he informed her and then the day's quota of running and screaming was filled.

* * *

Rose strapped on the gun belt with a sigh and grabbed her Torchwood issued backpack. Jake jumped into the van and she followed, still more annoyed than excited. She would rather have been spending time with the Doctor than going out and examining a crash site.

Bruce Reese and Cassie Morris climbed in to the backseats and with a jaunty wave at the garage guard, Jake pulled out into traffic.

"Cardiff, again?" Bruce asked, his brown eyes serious and focused.

"Naw, not this time," Jake assured him.

"Someplace without rain would be enough for me," Cassie assured them, pulling her mass of dark hair into a ponytail and securing it.

"Rain in July is just not fair," Bruce agreed with a nod.

"Tell me about it!" Jake chimed in and Rose grinned at them.

"So, the Sun says you're shacking up with Doctor Smith. Is it true?" Cassie asked with a grin.

"Yup," Rose answered with a smug expression. Jake clutched his chest dramatically.

"Oh my poor broken heart!" he cried out!

"Oh don't even start, you poofter!" Bruce laughed and Jake grinned at him.

"I'm not a poofter!" Jake protested. "I'm equal opportunity! Any gender, any race, and any sentient species!" he declared with a leer at Bruce in the rear view mirror.

"Eyes on the road, you git!" Rose scolded him and rolled her eyes. She'd thought that she would really miss Captain Jack Harkness, but Jake took up the slack there rather nicely. She did wonder what would happen if the two of them were ever in the same universe. Probably a pheromone implosion and the end of all life, she chuckled to herself.

"Shut it, you lot, I'm getting the dish here!" Cassie interrupted and Rose grinned. "So, where'd you two meet?"

"On a beach in Norway, about three days ago," she teased and Cassie rolled her eyes. It was the honest truth after all, if not all the truth.

"You git! Come on, out with it!" Cassie insisted and Rose sighed out.

"He's the Doctor, you barmy cow!" she shot back and they all fell silent and blinked at her. "I've only been telling you about him for a whole year!"

"But, I thought…" Cassie trailed off and stared at her then shook her head. "I'm sorry, I really thought you were talking about an alien!"

"He IS an alien!" she laughed. "Or half of one anyway, he's part human."

"He looks dishy to me, not fishy," Jake teased and Rose shrugged.

"He looks human!" Bruce agreed.

"He'd say that we lot all look Time Lords, since they were around long before our kind were." She shrugged. "He's more than human enough," she assured them, thinking about just how delightfully perfect their nights together had been.

"Got all the right bits?" Cassie asked with a slightly suspicious air.

"Oh yes! All the right bits!" Rose confirmed with an enthusiastic tone and a big grin.

"Well, as long as your happy, Rose," she answered, still looking a bit dubious.

"Deliriously so," she sighed out with a warm happiness that filled every bit of her.

"Well, then, let's go and meet your in-laws," Jake teased and Rose stuck her tongue out at him.

* * *

The Doctor met Rose's cousins and smiled broadly to cover his dismay. Jimmy, Dougie, and Ralph could have stood in for a whole rugby team by themselves and apparently often did.

"Well, you gotta be daft as a brush to wanna marry that bird!" Jimmy assured him with a shrug.

"Still he's better than that tosser she dropped out o' school for!" Dougie temporized with a frown on his rather bovine face.

"A dog in nappies would be better than that wanker!" Ralph snarked and the three of them burst into hearty guffaws.

With a slightly stiff smile, the Doctor asked them about themselves and let them ramble. He fetched beers and made encouraging noises while they talked about sports and women. At first, he seriously wondered how his brilliant Rose had managed to emerge from this unpromising gene pool. After a bit though, he noted that despite the working class language and lack of education, none of the three men were at all stupid.

"Naw, naw, that's not right at all, Doc, the coal miners were strikin' and that Berk Thatcher put the boot on 'em!" Dougie was explaining to him and Ralph was nodding.

"The zepplins were what saved us there, though, ya know," Jimmy cut in. "When their crews threatened to strike as well, she hadda give in or the economy woulda crashed."

"Yeah, whole economy is dependent on the zepps, everything gets shipped that way, without 'em, we'd be in deep shite," Dougie agreed and the Doctor leaned back in his chair, learning the political history of his new universe from three rugby-playing welders, with high school educations, and shrewd minds.

Maybe this wedding wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Oi! But we gotta plan the Stag Party!" Jimmy suddenly blurted out and the Doctor winced. Perhaps, he had spoken too soon.


	8. Chapter 8

Stag and Hen

Rose put her head in her hands and sighed. The new living room furniture had arrived and she had been happily considering breaking in the new couch with an impromptu 'dance' with her husband, when he'd broken the news. Her mind immediately went to strippers, booze, and people staggering home to honking in the drive. Bit of a mood killer, she realized.

"I did try to say no, Rose, but they were quite insistent," the Doctor apologized and she shook her head.

"My girls are planning a Hen Night for me as well, no doubt," she admitted and the Doctor looked even more uncomfortable. "One last fling for the condemned," she sighed.

"I don't understand, Rose. They're your family, they obviously love you, so why do they all mock and tease about me marrying you?" he asked with a certain amount of distress.

"Cause we're humans," she laughed. "The more serious something is, the more we laugh about it. Soldiers about to die crack jokes and brides and grooms go out and get pissed." She gave him a helpless look and he nodded his understanding.

"You know, that makes a lot of sense, actually," he admitted and his wry smile made her feel a bit breathless.

"You know, I'm done talking about this," she informed him and walked into his arms. "We have a lot of dance practice to do."

"I've been out of practice for hundreds of years, we may have to spend all night at it," he teased and she grinned up at him.

"Sounds good to me!" she laughed and they headed upstairs to practice. She'd save the couch for another night.

* * *

The Doctor smiled at the guys from Torchwood, watching as Rose's cousins eyed the tech geeks and the tech geeks eyed the Rugby players.

"Tibbs! Over here! What were the most league goals in a season for West Ham United?" he called out and Tibbs frowned at him, obviously confused as to why the Doctor was asking.

"101 goals in Division Two, that was in the 1957–58 season," he answered and Dougie gaped at him.

"Tha's right!" the burly blond exclaimed and very quickly the cousins were peppering Tibbs with sports trivia questions, which he answered with growing comprehension of his friend's ulterior motives. The Doctor grinned at him and quickly turned to Stevie Hicks.

"Stevie, what was the name of that rather lovely brunette you were flirting with at the office," he asked next and Stevie gave him a broad wink.

"I never kiss and tell, Doctor," he laughed and the twinkle in his eye had the cousins roaring with laughter.

"Did you ever give her your name?" the Doctor teased and Stevie grinned.

"Well, according to her, my name is "Oh God, yes!" and I never argue with a lady," he answered with a grin and a shrug. There was general laughter after that and the two techies were welcomed with open arms.

The Doctor spent the rest of the evening pretending to drink, while dumping most of it either into other people's glasses, or a rather sad looking potted palm. The last thing he wanted to do was actually get drunk. He suspected that the lowbrow humor of other inebriated males would not seem as funny in the morning and he had no desire to wake up sporting a tattoo or with some scantily clad woman. Well, unless the scantily clad woman was his wife.

* * *

Rose was pretty certain that she was having the worst Hen Night that any woman had ever had in the history of marriage.

The men dancing on the stage looked bored or possibly drugged, the drinks were terrible, the cake was a bit stale, and aside from Cassie, the women she'd invited from work weren't people she normally socialized with.

To be honest, aside from her team, she hadn't really associated with any of the other Torchwood folks at all, or anyone else really. Looking out at the gathering she wasn't sure what to say to anyone. Her cousin Mo wasn't the Mo she'd grown up with in the other universe, she was just a stranger who looked like her. The other women were pretty much strangers that she nodded to at work.

It was utterly depressing.

She'd become so obsessed with getting back to the Doctor that she'd made no real friends, never got to really know most of these people and now she was paying the price for that. True, she'd imagined that when she found the Doctor she'd be going back to her own universe to travel with him forever, so it had made sense to not get too attached to these people. Looking at the women around the table, she smiled suddenly.

"All right, let's play 'Questions'!" she demanded and they all looked at her in surprise. "You ask me a question and I get to ask you one," she told them and the smiles started to bloom.

"All right, Rose," Cassie laughed. "So, are you shagging him?"

"Yes," Rose answered and the other women laughed, some rather nervously. "My turn, Cassie. When are you going to jump Bruce's bones and be done with it?"

"Oh!" Cassie protested. "That little boy? I'd break him!" she laughed and the table dissolved into giggles.

"I have a question," Toshiko murmured, raising her hand like they were in class. "What planet is he from?" The other women, minus Cassie, burst into laughter, thinking Tosh was being facetious.

"Gallifrey," she answered, pretending she was joking, for the benefit of the others and Tosh nodded. It was obvious that Toshiko was brighter than Rose had guessed, but her matter of fact unconcern about the Doctor being an alien made her warm to the slender Japanese woman. "So then, my question for you Tosh is, are you dating anyone?"

"Oh, no!" Tosh responded with a blush.

"Your boy's a funny one, it's true," Moira commented with a grin. "But gorgeous! How come no other girl had snapped him up?"

"He's utterly brilliant, but it takes hitting him in the head with a brick before he gets a clue," she grumbled. "I practically had to throw myself at him before he even figured out I was female!" General laughter followed that comment and even Tosh grinned. "So, Moira, who do you think the hottest guy at Torchwood is?"

"Jake Simmons, but never let him know I said so! He struts enough as it is!" she responded with a laugh.

"The Doctor is brilliant, really, I'm constantly amazed at how much he knows," Suzie interjected, shaking her head with a sigh. Her black hair was caught up in a ponytail and her dark eyes were thoughtful. "He's pretty amazing." She grinned suddenly. "Does he have a brother?"

"Not anymore, his family is all dead now," she admitted and the other women looked sympathetic and Rose shrugged. "But once we're married, he'll have my family."

"Poor man," Suzie muttered and there was some chuckling.

"Brave man!" Cassie corrected and the laughter was louder for that. "Marrying the boss's daughter is already awkward, but Rose, much as I love her, your Mum!" Cassie rolled her eyes and Rose nodded slowly.

"She's great, you know, the absolute best, but yeah, she can be a bit much for some people," Rose concurred and the others nodded.

"She's not that bad," Tosh shrugged. "You should spend some time with my family, you'd think Jackie Tyler was pretty undemanding." There were smiles all around and the women began comparing mother stories for a while.

Rose leaned back, satisfied that the Hen Night was now back on track. She looked around at the other women and smiled. She was making friends. That wasn't so bad.

* * *

Geneva Murray looked at the paperwork with a sigh. She'd been absolutely right about the Doctor. He created new and more complex problems for her every day.

"Why did he requisition five hundred feet of cooling conduit?" she asked herself and tried not to bang her head on the desk.

Across from her, reclining causally in the arm chair on the other side of her desk, her partner Bruce chuckled.

"He made a stasis unit to literally freeze dangerous objects so they couldn't pose a threat," he answered, his basso voice rumbling. She peered up at him with a sigh. Bruce Reese was a very big man. He filled the armchair to overflowing. Bruce looked like he'd been carved out of rock, a craggy face, eyes like agates, a dark crew cut, and hands the size of small hams. It was always surprising, to those that didn't know him, that he was so gentle and kind a person.

"I'm sure he did something brilliant, Bruce, but now I have to find a way to justify it in the budget," she grumbled.

"Actually, I think Mr. Tyler has made a special entry for "Doctor related expenses"," Bruce commented and Geneva frowned. She hunted around in the budget program and quickly found the form he was referring to.

"Did the Doctor ask for this?" she read off. "Did anything explode? Did the result save the world/universe/all of time and space?" She looked up at Bruce with a frown as he chuckled. "Did you ever get an explanation other than "Wibbly Wobbly Timey Whimey" or "It's like _, but not really at all."?" She put her head down on the desk and tried to quell the incipient headache. "How much did it cost us? How many of the techs had to go home and lie down for the rest of the day? Did it re-write our definitions of Physics? How many researchers were crying by the end of the day? Did it re-write our definitions of Physics? How many researchers were in tears by the end of the day?" She stared at the form, where it sat blinking on her screen, and prayed that it was some sort of an elaborate joke by her boss. But, from the way things were already going, she had a bad feeling that it was no joke at all. Her luck simply wasn't that good.

"Mr. Tyler said he'd update the form as things 'developed', but he didn't really say what he meant by that." Bruce shrugged.

"He means that it will probably only get worse over time," Geneva translated and thought longingly of Bermuda. If she resigned now and got on a plane, she could be basking on a beach by tomorrow.

What on Earth had made her do something as bloody stupid as joining Torchwood in the first place, she wondered, and not for the first time.


	9. Chapter 9

Political Issues

Rose smiled at Harriet Jones as she walked into the house, her security detachment spreading out over the house and grounds with well-practiced ease.

"Miss Tyler!" she called and gave Rose a hug.

"Madame President," Rose replied with a grin.

"I hear that congratulations are in order!" Harriet looked quite pleased and Rose couldn't help but nod and smile, her happiness just beaming out of her.

"Yeah, the wedding will be next month," she admitted and Harriet winked at her.

"Making sure he can't get away?" she teased.

"Wouldn't want to," the Doctor told her as he strolled into the room. The President turned and smiled at him, pulling her clearance badge from her pocket.

"Harriet Jones, President of the UK," she introduced herself and the Doctor's eyes twinkled as he responded.

"Yes, I know who you are. I'm the Doctor, Doctor Smith," he told her, still stumbling a bit over his new identity.

"Yes Doctor, I know who you are," she answered and there were layers of meaning there. "I've been briefed." He smiled at her and she winked back at him. "Thank you for all that you've done and all that you are doing." He waved off her appreciation with a small uncomfortable shrug

"You're giving me a home, it's the least I can do to repay you for that," he informed her and she smiled even more broadly at him.

"Well, it's true that you redefine the meaning of 'resident alien'," she teased and they all laughed at the joke, as they headed into the dining room for dinner.

* * *

The meal was going well, the Doctor decided. This version of Harriet had no history with him, so he could enjoy her company and talk with her about her history and rise to power without concern that she would be harboring resentment towards him. Aside from the complete lack of Slitheen involvement, her rise was rather similar to the other universe's version. After the cyber-conversion of most of the government, Harriet had been left to pick up the pieces and re-build, something that she was proving to be quite brilliant at.

"So we had to deal with the sudden lack of population in London and what that meant to the workforce, of course," she sighed out and he nodded. "We paid for people's moving expenses to get them to the city and built temporary housing, while we worked on sorting out all the bodies and was anybody still alive who owned certain properties. That kept us going for a while." She shrugged and the Doctor thought about that night, about watching all those poor people realize what had been done to them. The screams lingered in his mind.

"It was horrible, you know, all those deaths," Rose sighed out and Harriet nodded, her eyes shadowed.

"It was. But Britain in filled with lovely resilient people and when terrible things happen, well, that's when we are at our very best. The families that took in all of those orphans, the homeless who started up bucket brigades and searched houses for abandoned babies and small children, the way that whole communities rose up and helped each other, that's what we need to remember." Harriet's eyes were lit with the fire of determination and the Doctor smiled at her and nodded.

"That's what I like best about humans," he replied with a smile. "You lot are never down for long, you always get up again and keep going. Indomitable, that's what you are." He grinned at Harriet Jones and she grinned back at him.

"Indeed we are, Doctor. Indeed we are."

* * *

"There are some benefits to not having history here," Rose murmured after the President had left and the Doctor nodded.

"Not going to oust this version, are you Doctor?" Jackie asked with a slightly worried air and the Doctor shook his head.

"No, I think she's doing a great job," he answered and Jackie heaved out a sigh of relief.

"Good, cause I like her," Jackie informed him with a decisive nod of her head. "She wants me to go to France and talk with their Prime Minister. She thinks I could make him see reason."

"No, she wants you to give him that glare of yours, Jackie, he'll fall apart in two seconds," the Doctor teased her gently. "I think you'll do wonderfully, you have a knack for international diplomacy." Jackie eyed him as though she was certain he was ribbing her, but he simply looked back at her with a sincere smile.

"Hmm. Well, I just might at that," Jackie answered, still glaring at him in suspicion.

* * *

He was sitting on their new couch, staring out the window of their front room, fondling the coral in his pocket and remembering. Susan. He missed her so much. He used to visit her regularly, bringing his various companions by to meet her, stopping for a day or so to catch up with her, to play with all the orphaned children in that future London, and to make sure that she was all right.

It got harder of course, as David aged. He'd had to force himself to go a few times. Hiding the shock and dismay he felt, as lines bloomed on his grand-son-in-law's face, had been tough.

Thirty years. That's all Susan had gotten with him. The lingering radiation from the Dalek invasion, the hard work of rebuilding, the lack of food and medicines, it had all taken its toll. Susan had done what she could. She'd ransacked old hospitals for equipment, medicine, text books. She'd studied late into the night, learning everything she could, but it hadn't been enough. He was only human after all. Eventually death had come for him.

He'd gone to the funeral, stood beside Susan and let her lean on him as she sobbed. Ace had wept just as bitterly as Susan had. He'd taken her there several times and she'd grown fond of David. It was hard not to like him, honestly. He had been a truly good man.

He looked down at his hands. What would Susan have thought of this meta-crises version of him? Would she have rejected him, unable to watch him age and die as David had? He shook his head.

No. Not his Susan. Through everything they'd gone through together, she'd never turned her back on him. She'd been so unwilling to leave him that he'd had to lock her out of the TARDIS, just to get her to marry the man she loved.

Romana? If she'd lived, would she have stayed his friend? Or would he become to her what his companions had been to him? Would she have eventually left him behind as well? He didn't know. Would they have pitied him? Would he have been less in their eyes than the other Doctor? The questions haunted him, mostly because he knew there would never be an answer for them.

They were all dead. Burned up with Gallifrey. He dropped his head into his hands and wept. Gone. All gone. His mum, Susan, his son and his son's wife, Andred, Leela, and even the Master.

The agony of that was still raw. His last remaining friend, the only other one of his people left and he'd chosen to die rather than go with him. Was he really a fate worse than death? That hurt.

Rose settled beside him on the couch and wrapped her arms around him.

"Doctor?"

"Oh Rose, I was forced to destroy my own world, to kill every Time Lord in the universe and it hurts so much!" he sobbed and she drew his head down into her lap, stroking his hair. "I miss them so damn much! I go over it in my mind again and again, trying to figure out if there had been another way, a solution that could have saved my home, my people, and I can't find it! I want to go back in time, I want to save them all and I can't! It just hurts so damn much. It just hurts," he wept and she kept stroking his hair, making soothing sounds until he began to relax, the hiccupping sobs easing into a trickle of tears.

"I'm so sorry, love," she sighed out and he burrowed into her embrace, taking comfort in her warmth, her compassion, and her love. He felt as though he was still so broken, so fragile, and yet, here, in her arms, he found his strength again. He took a deep breath and sat up.

"Thank you, Rose," he told her with a soft kiss.

"For what?" she asked in confusion.

"For being here," he replied and she nodded.

"Rest of our lives," she promised and he hugged her hard against him. It seemed like such a brief time ahead of them and that made his heart hurt. He wanted to live with Rose until the sun burned out, but that wasn't going to happen.

It wasn't fair.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N - Sorry for the delay in chapters. I had a lot to think about for this scene. :)

Wedding Day

The Doctor was nervous. Not the terror of, 'look a Dalek Fleet is approaching', but more in the 'must not under any circumstances muck this up' sort of way. Rose's cousins were laughing and punching each other, while Jake primped in the mirror and the Doctor was fingering the TARDIS coral in his pocket and thinking.

He'd been married before. It wasn't a particularly pleasant memory. Nor was his memory of his son's wedding all that nice. He'd really not liked the woman his son had married. He'd missed Susan's wedding, though he'd made it to the reception. That had been a time of mixed joy for him. He'd been glad for her happiness and miserably lonely at the same time.

He honestly couldn't think of a happy wedding memory. It had always been about other people finding someone and leaving him. Jo had married Dr. Jones and then gone off and away. Before that, Ben and Polly had traipsed off to the altar and each time, the Doctor had been left behind. Even the Brigadier had gotten re-married and left UNIT. Every wedding had been a sort of loss for him. Even his own. Though what he'd lost then was his innocence.

She'd been beautiful, clever, and had acted as though she thought he was funny and brilliant. He'd thought she loved him and that she wanted to be with him for who he was. His wedding had been a dull boring affair, but he'd been happy regardless. The wedding night had been a disaster. No longer having to pretend, she'd lain beneath him like a stone.

He'd walked away, leaving her there, unable to hide his grief and disappointment. He'd spent that night re-working his sonic screwdriver and talking to his Mum. She'd been as sad for him as he was and they had discussed his options. He'd chosen to stick it out, to live with his mistake and he'd regretted it for a very long time. His wife had poisoned his relationship with his son, arranged the boy's marriage to another high born snob, and allied herself with the Doctor's older brother, making sure to ridicule and embarrass the Doctor whenever she could.

Then Susanatrevalar had been born. His granddaughter. From the first moment he'd held Susan, he'd loved the baby girl. She'd looked up at him with her unfocused dark eyes and he'd been lost in adoration. Her parents had been uninterested in her and she'd followed after him from the moment she'd learned to crawl. He recalled every moment of her childhood, the bright enquiring mind, the giggling child who'd shared his irreverent attitude and sense of humor, the small soft arms wrapped about his neck, the trusting gaze of someone who'd believed in him completely.

Then she'd turned eight and been brought before the Untempered Schism. He closed his eyes in pain. He'd taken her and escaped Gallifrey less than a week later. He'd stolen a TARDIS and run and he hadn't stopped running since, he knew. Even though she was dead now, burned up with Gallifrey, he was still running, only now he was running from the memory of what he'd done.

The last time he'd seen her, she'd gone with him to the TARDIS, to say good-bye. She'd watched him with the sapphire blues eyes she'd gotten from her last regeneration and there had been sorrow and worry in them. She'd looked like a renaissance painting of an angel. Pale blonde hair held back in a bun, her white doctor's robes hanging about her, so slender and fair, so beautiful, and he'd killed her. The person he'd loved most in all the universe and he had murdered her. She'd died screaming in agony and it was all his fault.

Tears were burning in his eyes and he forced his mind away from the memory.

Rose.

He made himself go forward, he saw Rose again, in the basement of that shop. Her eyes were so warm, so filled with a passionate intelligence, and an aliveness that he hadn't felt himself in so very long. She'd demanded that he come back to life, that he respond with some sort of humanity. She'd chided him, bullied him, laughed and teased him, hugged and cuddled him until he found himself starting to thaw out. The thick carapace he'd hidden inside of began to crack apart. She'd risked her life to save him, made him see that maybe he was worth saving.

Her love had brought him back to life and now here he was getting married to her. He pushed the sorrow away, the bad memories, and tried to concentrate on the future.

He was marrying a girl who really did love him for who he was. She didn't know about his family, his inheritance, his history, or the legacy of his ancestors, so she couldn't be marrying him for that. It would be okay now, because he had his Rose.

"Doctor?" Jake interrupted his reverie. "It's time." He nodded at the young man and they headed out. The Doctor quite comfortable in the jet black trainers he'd compromised on with Jackie. It had helped that the wedding planner, that lovely David chap, had sided with him on them. Fellow had been utterly delightful and had made Rose feel happy and contented with the whole mad process. The Doctor was considering making him his own Sonic, just as a thank you.

The priest smiled at him as he came forward.

St. James' Church in Piccadilly had a lovely altar and the cheerful yellow interior made everything seem brighter and happier. They'd chosen the church partially for its location and partially for its tolerant and open attitudes. They might not have known that he was an alien, but he doubted that they'd have minded regardless.

"Rev. Lucy," he smiled, while shaking her hand, and she grinned at him.

"John," she greeted him and gestured him to his place, still smiling. He'd tried to get her to call him 'Doctor' but she laughed it off as 'too formal' and he'd let it pass. This ceremony was for public consumption and for Jackie and Rose, after all. It wasn't as if he could put his real name on a marriage license after all, so this was just a bit of play-acting, as far as he was concerned. He'd married Rose in Norway by the laws and customs of his world and that was legal and binding enough for him.

Jake pantomimed not being able to find the ring and the Doctor looked heavenward and prayed for patience. He recalled the same prank being played at Shakespeare's wedding and had no doubt that similar hijinks had been played out since the first hominid had handed a ripe fruit to a potential mate, only to have his best chum chuck twigs and leaves at them both. It was just something quite uniquely human, an irreverence that he normally appreciated, when he wasn't the butt of it.

The music started up and the bridesmaids did their processional up the aisle, all looking rather pleased with the rose tinted gowns they were wearing. Rose appeared at the end of the aisle, leaning on Pete's arm, a radiant smile on her face.

The Doctor was fairly certain that his heart had stopped beating. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in nine hundred years of traveling through time and space. The white dress floated around her like a cloud, it glittered and gleamed with beads and embroidery, tiny puffed sleeves kissed her arms and she held a huge bouquet of roses in a thousand different hues, with ribbons trailing down from it. Her hair was swept back up off of her neck into an elaborate confection with sparkling gems threaded through it, a white veil drifting over her like mist.

He wished suddenly that his Mum could have been here. Smiling at his wife as she marched towards him, he wished he could have shown her this final culmination of his journey, to let her see him finally finding the happiness that she'd always wished for him.

Rose reached his side and he took her arm with a feeling of absolute rightness. For all that this ceremony was just a bit of public spectacle, he found himself moved by the beauty of the Church, the music that was underlining the joy and solemnity of the occasion, the wonderful sweetness of the flowers everywhere, huge sprays on either side of the altar and smaller bundles on the ends of each pew, it was like something from a fairy tale and he blinked back tears as Reverend Winkett began reading out the liturgy.

Rose was beaming up at him, her smile so broad and joyful that he thought his heart would burst from the happiness he was feeling.

When at last they had said their vows and turned to face the congregation, he was grinning as broadly as she was and the cheering was loud and celebratory. His wife on his arm, the Doctor marched off to the limo looking forward to the reception.

"Not too shabby, Doctor," Rose teased as they climbed in.

"Yeah, normally I'm rubbish at weddings," he chortled and she leaned in for another kiss. This was the best part of it all, he decided, kissing Rose was his favorite pastime. Better than chips, better than biscuits, more addictive than chocolate and twice as sweet. He lost himself in the things that they made each other feel for a long while.

"I love you, Rose," he told her again and she grinned at him.

"You mentioned that earlier," she murmured and he touched his forehead to hers.

"I intend to tell you at least ten times a day, every day, for the rest of our lives," he informed her and she dissolved into giggles.

"I love you too, Doctor," she replied, still laughing and he kissed her again, for good measure. He had a lot of catching up to do.


	11. Chapter 11

Egypt

They got off the plane in Cairo and the Doctor looked about with a suspicious air. Rose chuckled at the sight, amused by his antics. He waved goodbye to the flight crew and they all called their farewells after him. He'd made friends with the whole lot of them, gotten an angry couple to reconcile, and kept three small children entertained with silly stories, all just during the course of the plane trip.

She shook her head in wonderment as he knelt down and solemnly shook the hands of the children.

"Try not to drive your Mum too mad, all right Gerry?" he instructed the eldest boy with a wink and the child agreed with a sigh. They scampered off and the Doctor waved after them.

"Would you like to have children?" she asked him suddenly and he grinned broadly at her.

"I would very much like to have children, actually, as long as you were the Mum, of course," he replied with a wink and she laughed.

"How many?"

"Well, I was thinking ten at the minimum," he teased and she burst out laughing.

"Only if you're the one giving birth!" she retorted, still laughing and he shook his head.

"If this were Gallifrey we could put them all into artificial wombs and you could skip all the pain and mess," he murmured, his eyes distant.

"No way!" she insisted and he looked at her in surprise. "Takes all the fun out of it! I want to feel the baby kicking inside, I want to send you out in a blizzard at 3in the morning to get me Chinese food, I want to wonder and guess and waddle around like a penguin!" she insisted and he laughed, his expression one of pure delight.

"Sounds absolutely brilliant," he agreed and hand-in-hand they went through customs.

* * *

When they finally reached the hotel and checked in, Rose was ready to collapse.

"Now you know why I never bothered to ask for landing permissions, or go through customs, anywhere I landed the TARDIS," he muttered and Rose nodded her head. Psychic paper would have been damn useful a few times. "Paperwork!" He spat out the word like it was a particularly vicious curse.

"The curse of civilization," she shrugged and he shook his head.

"Castrovalva had a civilization of incredible sophistication and technological achievement and they did it without any sort of bureaucracy," he informed her. "There was peace, equality, and no one ever went hungry. They shared everything without ever counting the cost to themselves. It was idyllic," he continued.

"Was?"

"Well, the Master destroyed their whole civilization in an attempt to kill me," he admitted and she blinked.

"The Master? You mean that best childhood chum you were talking about?" she asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, well, in his defense, he was insane."

"Did you have any friends that didn't try to kill you?" she asked next and he winced.

"Yeah, but I killed them all," he sighed out and now it was her turn to cringe.

"Sorry," she apologized, wrapping an arm around his waist and hugging him for a moment. He hugged her back and then began picking up the suitcases and setting them on the bed.

"Susan used to tease me about it too, you know," he told her, his eyes shadowed, but his lips quirked in a smile. ""Oh Grandfather," she'd sigh at me, "You have such a way with people, don't you? If they aren't shooting at us, they're throwing us in jail!" and she was right too. We ended up in the Concierge, you know, during the Terror in France. Poor Susan and Barbara got dragged off to the guillotine. If they hadn't been rescued by some monarchists, that would have been it for poor Barbara," he sighed, and began unpacking his suitcase into the bureau.

"I have trouble seeing you as a grandfather," she told him, her mind boggling a bit at the idea. She had settled on the end of the bed, not sure if she was going to unpack or live out of a suitcase.

"Well, back then I'd been a blue-eyed blond, though I got rather gray towards the end," he chuckled and she tried to imagine it, before she shaking her head in disbelief.

"Here, I'll show you," he told her and pulled a small plastic cube from out of his pocket and settled beside her on the bed.

"What's that?" she asked.

"An image cube," he answered absently and his fingers brushed the surface of it. A picture appeared on the surface and when she leaned in to look more closely, the image spread out from the cube to hover in the air. She peered more closely and saw a slender, dark-haired teen, with a winsome smile, leaning against a distinguished old man. "That's Susan and myself when we were in France, we were running about in the eighteenth century, I think," he murmured and she studied the younger/older version of him with interest. He looked a bit stern and she remembered how he'd said he'd been more arrogant back then.

"You look quite fierce," she told him, her finger tracing the image. She must have activated something because another image blinked into view. The same girl, but older now, her eyes shadowed and her pixie smile turned into something grave.

"That was from after David died," he sighed out. "She stayed on Earth for another fifteen years, making sure that their adopted children would be okay, and that the grandchildren were well, before I was able to convince her to come away with me."

"I see what you meant though, Doctor," she agreed. "She looks so sad and lonely." He nodded and flicked the cube with his thumb again. A short spritely man in check trousers and a mop of black hair grinned out of the picture, a Scottish highlander boy and a young girl who looked a bit like Susan, but wearing a skin tight jumpsuit, standing beside him.

"That was after my very first regeneration, with Zoe and Jamie, two very dear friends," he answered her unspoken question, his eyes filled with fond affection. "I picked Jamie up in Scotland in1746, right after the battle and he travelled with me for a very long time. He was my best mate, of the human kind, that I ever had. He never had a problem telling me when he thought I was full of it," he laughed. "Zoe was from the latter part of the 21st century, a charming child, utterly brilliant. She went on to become a prominent mathematician. In fact, the 'Heriot Theorem" is still seen as one of the key mathematical breakthroughs of her age, it led to …" he trailed off as he realized that Rose's eyes had glazed over. "Sorry."

"It's fine Doctor. You know I love it when you piffle," she told him, with a kiss on his cheek. He flicked the cube again and a silver haired man with an imperious air appeared standing beside a smiling brunette. "Is that Sarah Jane?" she asked with a grin and he nodded. "But Doctor, a velvet coat and a frilly shirt?" her horror made him laugh.

"It was quite stylish in the 70's," he assured her and she shook her head. He flicked it again and there was a grinning madman with a mass of dark curls, wearing the most impossible assortment of clothes she'd ever seen. She gaped at the startling sight and tried to imagine her brusque Northerner in such an outfit. "There I was in my fourth incarnation, the girl there in the velvet was Nyssa, the boy was Adric." His eyes darkened and he stared at the image with a melancholy air.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'd lost companions twice before, Katarina died to protect me and Sara aged to dust right in front of me when she got caught in the field of a Time Destructor. Both of those deaths were terrible, but Adric was far harder for me in many ways. It was such a senseless stupid death and he was so very young. He was one of those awkward young geniuses, a tech nerd," he told her and she nodded her understanding. "I was starting to get through to him though, making him see that there was a world outside of his head and his future could have been so very bright." He fell silent and she patted his shoulder.

She flicked it to the next image and a tall blonde with a large smile and serious eyes appeared.

"Oh my! Who's the sexy ginger?" she asked and he frowned at her.

"Vislor Turlough," he replied rather abruptly. "The girls are Nyssa again and Tegan Jovanka." He chuckled. "The Master once referred to her as a mouth with legs," he told her. "She was rather outspoken and her Australian accent could be a trifle piercing," he admitted and she laughed.

"The Master again? How long did that all go on?"

"Well, it started in the Academy I think, we'd been best mates since we were tots, you know. But something happened to him. He started to get these headaches, but even Gallifrey's finest doctors could find no physical cause for them. He got irritable, restless, started taking reckless chances. He was angry all the time for a while and then he just took off. Stole a TARDIS and left. The next time I saw him was on Earth, in my third body. He had some scheme to use the Autons to take over the universe." He shook his head in disbelief. "Can you believe he was running about in a Nehru jacket, sporting a goatee, and acting like some sort of Bond villain?"

"Was that while you were running about in a velvet frock coat and one of Liberace's shirts?" she snarked and he glared at her.

"If you don't want to hear the story," he threatened and she suppressed a giggle and shook her head.

"I'm hanging on every word, Doctor," she assured him and he eyed her suspiciously.

"So that must have been nearly four hundred years we spent sparring with each other, I suppose." He looked sad and she slipped an arm about him again. "I've never understood it. He was so brilliant, so good natured, funny, kind and gentle. He was a much nicer person than I ever was," he told her.

"And no one knows why he went bang off his nut?" she asked and he twitched at the bluntness of her question.

"No. I never did find out and I suppose that I never will now." He was starting off into space and she flicked to the next image and gave a little screech of horror.

"It was the 80's Rose, that's my only excuse," he sighed and quickly flicked to the next image.

"You look like my Uncle George this time," she informed him. "Same hat, even. He ended up in prison for passing bad checks." He laughed.

"The girl in the leather jacket was Ace. You'd have liked her, Rose. She was brave, loyal, and fierce. Had a tendency to play with explosives, sadly, but everyone has their little foibles," he told her and her eyebrows were climbing to her hairline.

"Foibles?" she asked and he shrugged. Another flick and she stared in interest.

"Here's where you got hot again!" she said in an admiring tone. "The blond in the cricketing gear was a Jack, but this one's dreamy!"

"A 'Jack'?"

"Like the fella from Titanic, a 'Jack', sweet, nice, sensitive, you know."

"Of course," he told her with a confused look and she just shrugged. "Then after that one was the one you first met," he finished with a shrug.

"You went from dreamy poet-boy to cranky Northerner all in one go?" she asked, staring at the sweet, gentle-eyed bloke in the cube with a feeling of dawning horror.

"Time War," he explained, his face rather bleak, as he too stared at the man he used to be. "There's nothing like two hundred years of grueling combat, followed by the destruction of everything you've ever loved best, to turn you into a leather-clad git," he sighed.

"You weren't a git," she protested and he gave her a lop-sided smile in return.

"I was a git," he disagreed and she smiled at him.

"I still loved you," she told him and he ducked his head.

"Yeah, loved you too," he confessed and she grabbed him and kissed him, the cube tumbling from his fingers.

The past ceased to be important after that.


	12. Chapter 12

The Trouble with Camels

"They're a lot bigger in person than they were on the telly," Rose told him with a wondering tone.

"Well, it was a very small telly," he chuckled and craned his neck back to look up at the pyramids, with Rose beside him, her hand tucked in his.

"It's hot, dry, my skin feels like its going to peel off, and I have learned that I hate camels," she informed him.

"Well, they hate you too. Not just you, nothing personal or anything, they just hate everyone. Especially horses," he informed her and she cocked her head at him in amusement.

"Really?" she asked and he nodded.

"Oh yes, a very angry animal is your average camel."

"Why are they angry?"

"Have you looked at a camel? Got the evolutionary booby prize they did! A face not even a mother camel could love paired with a body that moves like two bad Panto actors having a go at the rum. I'd be pretty angry if I had ended up looking like that!" he explained and Rose was giggling, which was a sound he found absolutely delightful.

"That rainbow-coated fellow must have been very angry then," she teased and he sighed.

"Actually, yes, he was," he admitted and his mind turned to the Valeyard again. Without Rose, without Donna, all alone and filled with such despair, how far would his other self go? It worried him more than he liked to admit.

"Earth to the Doctor, come in Doctor," Rose chirped and he looked at her with a feeling of deep joy. He squeezed her hand and dropped a kiss on her forehead. He was so glad that they were here, together, that he had the amazing and wonderful Rose Tyler as his wife.

"Sorry, Rose, my mind drifted a bit," he confessed and she nodded.

"Someplace sad, it looked like," she told him and he nodded.

"There is a possible future where my other self goes totally evil. So evil that even the Master was scared of him," he told her and her eyes went wide in shocked denial. "I am worried that with Gallifrey destroyed, you lost forever to him, him all alone there, that the future where that happens is suddenly much more likely."

"Never gonna happen, Doctor," she told him with confidence and he looked at her with a sad smile.

"It's far more possible than you think, Rose," he disagreed and she shook her head at him.

"No, it's not. Come on Doctor, the first time you tried to do something evil a little child would start crying and that would be the end of it," she contradicted him. "I saw you on that plane. You care about everyone. You want to know what you can do to make them feel better, to help them. That's the very core of who you are. That isn't going to change just because you get angry, or depressed. Someone will always need you, they'll always need your help, or need you to save their planet, and you will never be able to resist that." She smiled up at him and he chuckled.

"Quite right, too," he agreed and she kissed him. He hoped that she was right about this, but he wasn't certain anymore.

He looked about, quietly whipped out his sonic screwdriver, and scanned the Great Pyramid. He was fairly certain that there were no alien devices about, but he wasn't taking any chances. He only had one life now so getting himself killed wasn't really an option.

"What are you looking for? Rose asked him and he frowned at the pyramid.

"Sutekh, just making certain he's not in there," he answered and she blinked at him. "Luckily, no sign of him."

"Sutekh?"

"Last of the Osirins, really nasty, got mistaken as an Egyptian god."

"Were you actually worried about an ancient Egyptian alien god thing showing up?" she asked.

"Well, yes, he did last time," he replied and continued to scan the area.

"And that's how you ended up on Mars?"

"Basically, yes. It was a bit more complicated than that, actually."

"I have an idea. Let's go somewhere cool, where tea is served and food as well. Then you can tell me the whole story," she suggested and he nodded, slipping his hand back into hers.

"Now that sounds brilliant!" he agreed enthusiastically.

* * *

They headed back to the camel and Rose grinned at her husband. It might not be an adventure like they were used to having, but it was fun. Just being with him was an adventure, watching him as he adapted to his new life, while still being the man he'd always been was fascinating.

"Really? I hadn't actually noticed," the Doctor murmured and Rose wondered what he was talking about before she grasped that he was talking to the camel. "Well, no, of course, not being a camel myself, it wasn't as obvious for me."

"Doctor?" she asked, but he waved her quiet.

"I won't ask if you're sure, because it's not something you'd make a mistake about, of course. I will definitely look into it though, thank you for mentioning it," he told the camel and then, frowning, walked away down the line of camels. They were all standing there, looking like camels, and Rose was baffled.

"Doctor?" she tried again.

"You there!" he called out to the sixth camel in line. Rose was about to laugh, but the camel turned and looked at the Doctor in what was clearly surprise. "You are an unregistered animorph on a class five world!" he informed the camel who promptly turned and started to run.

"Doctor!" she called out in dismay as he took off running after it.

"I will be informing the Shadow Proclamation about this infringement of Galactic Law if you don't stop right now!" he shouted and the camel skidded to a halt.

Rose looked around and saw that the tourists and tour guides were all snapping photos and gabbling in shock and amazement.

"Trained camel, gotta be!" she told the nearest tourist, while pretending to be bored by the whole thing.

"Well, obviously, but it's gonna be awesome on Youtube!" the tourist responded and Rose sighed.

"Now, you listen here. I am willing to turn a blind eye, if you remove yourself from this world immediately," the Doctor was scolding the camel and Rose was trying hard not think about her father's reaction to this particular video showing up on Youtube.

With a deft flick, she drew the prototype sonic from her purse and surreptitiously began disabling the various recording devices.

"I quite understand, yes, I can see how that might have seemed like your only option. But really, this is a class five world and you know how stiff the penalties are."

The camel bowed its head in what Rose could swear was resignation and then turned and trotted off back into the desert.

"Doctor?" she hissed and grabbing his hand, dragged him back to their camel, which was standing there looking insufferably smug. "Would you care to explain that?"

"Oh yes, very sad, very touching story, actually. Poor chap, his mother was just driving him mad, his wife left him for a Judoon, and he wanted to get away from it all. Came here to 'find himself', as it were. I have nothing but sympathy for the fellow, but a class five planet, really, just not a good idea! He could get into a lot of trouble."

"But how did the camel know he was an alien?" Rose asked.

"Because he certainly wasn't a camel! He hardly spoke the language, didn't curse, and never spit at anyone!" the Doctor explained and Rose stared at him for a long moment.

"Of course. Makes perfect sense," she replied and her husband smiled at her.

"Indeed! Anyway, off we go! Back to somewhere cool that serves tea," he nodded and they climbed back up on the camels and headed back towards the busses off in the distance. Rose buried her face in his jacket and grinned madly.

No matter what he looked like or if he was human, half-human, Time Lord, or whatever, the Doctor never really changed and that made her incredibly happy.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N - This is really short, I know. I am working on a much longer story and this is where I am putting my silliest ideas. :)

Busman's Honeymoon

"It's my honeymoon," Rose growled at the phone and the Doctor took one look at her face and made a strategic retreat to the bathroom.

"I know, Rose, and I do hate to ask, really, but you're the only members of Torchwood anywhere near to it!" Pete answered and she closed her eyes and counted to ten.

"Honeymoon, shall I spell it for you? Time for me and my newly wedded husband to hardly ever get out of bed, I'm sure that you know how important that is, because I was so wonderful as to take care of everything while you and Mum were on yours!" she reminded him and she could practically hear him wincing on the other end of the line.

"Yes, I know, you were amazing and if there was any sort of response team anywhere near you, I'd never ever ask for your help on this," he grovelled and she let out her breath in a huff. It wasn't that she minded going on a bug-hunt for Torchwood, she loved that sort of thing. Normally. When she didn't finally have a gorgeous half-naked man all to herself after waiting such a very long time to be with him.

"Send the data to my phone," she answered finally, her tone grudging.

"Thank you Rose, I'll make it up to you! I promise!" he assured her and she sighed out.

"Sure thing, Dad," she brushed off the promise, not certain that there was any way to make up for this interruption. "Talk to you later." She hung up and waited for the tone that told her the download was finished.

"What seems to be the problem?" the Doctor asked her with an arched eyebrow.

"A ship crashed not ten miles from here," she responded, frowning, as she read through the files Pete had sent her.

"That's rather odd, first the Animorph and now this. Makes one wonder if they've put in an off ramp right above the Earth," he muttered.

"Demolishing Earth for a bypass?" she teased and he grinned at her.

"Does that make you Trillian?" he asked with a laugh and she made a face.

"Fenchurch, I hope!" she corrected and he leaned in to kiss her.

"That's right, she's the one that marries Arthur Dent, isn't she?" he smiled and kissed her again.

"Uh-huh," she murmured, quickly forgetting everything as he gathered her in his arms and they lost themselves in the moment.

Her cell phone's beep jerked her back to reality and she glared at the inoffensive object.

"Crashed alien ship," he reminded her, while nibbling on her ear.

"Mmm," she responded and thought about tossing the phone out the window.

The sound of sirens, followed by a high pitched scream and an explosion, caused them to jump apart and run to the window.

Leaning out they saw a camel running for its life down the street, being chased by a very large, rather angry-looking hippopotamus, who was in turn being followed by a large number of police cars.

"Oh dear, looks as though his mother has caught up with him," the Doctor murmured and Rose looked up at him in horror.

"That's his mother? I'd be hiding out as a camel too!" she exclaimed and the Doctor nodded solemnly beside her.

* * *

It required baling wire, duct tape, the entire cast of a production of Pirates of Penzance, two donkeys, a zoo-keeper, a whole lot of running, and a great deal of fast talking, in both Arabic and English, before they were able to help the two Animorphs escape from being arrested by the Egyptian police.

The Doctor was still singing "the Major-General's Song" as they waved goodbye to them both, the alien craft rising from the desert sands, the camel's face pressed in desperate pleading against the window.

"I still think we should have helped him escape from his mother," Rose chided him and he smiled at her.

"Now Rose, that's his Mum, the female that brought him into this universe! How could you imagine that I would do something as low and despicable as slipping him a few sedatives to give her later?" he asked her with a look of injured innocence.

"You darling man!" she laughed and kissed him.

"Well, I had to help the poor fellow out. No sentient life form should have to suffer like that," he answered. "Now, what were we doing before we were so rudely interrupted?"

Rose grinned up at her husband. She was so very glad to be married to the most amazing, most brilliant, most wonderful man in all the universe.

"This," she answered and kissed him.

They did eventually make it back to the hotel, but it took them a very long while.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N - This brings us up to the beginning of "Once More, Into the Breach". Thank you for all the really lovely reviews. :)

Research and Development

"I know that I said six months, but you cleared out the entire backlog of unidentified objects in less than a month," Pete explained. The Doctor grinned and bounced a few times, so excited he could hardly stand it.

It was a workshop. A real honest-to-Gallifrey workshop. Tools, equipment, parts, everything he could ever desire for creating new and amazing things all in one place. It lacked nothing.

His mind flashed to the past suddenly. He was looking down into a pair of huge dark eyes, a mop of black curls above them. Susan was grinning up at him, handing him a spanner with her face alight with glee. His single human heart contracted in agony, as the knowledge that she was gone forever ripped through him once more.

Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane, a myriad of faces flashed before his eyes as he thought of all the wonderful people who'd stood beside him in workshops and laboratories just like this one. All of them were gone. Every single one was lost to him now forever.

"Doctor?" Pete's voice called him back to the present.

"This is brilliant, Pete. I am going to be able to do so much good here," he murmured, hiding his sudden melancholy with a bright smile, and reached for his sonic screwdriver, flipping it in his hand for a moment as he thought. "I'll start with a simple life form scanner and go from there."

He settled down and began to work. He could feel Pete's eyes on him for a long moment and then he was left alone with the workshop filled with tools and ghosts.

"Oh Susan," he whispered, tears running down his face. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

He gave the first sonic to Rose, of course. She grinned up at him with that tongue in teeth smile that made his heart flutter in his chest.

"It's a bit limited, compared to mine, but I'll keep upgrading it as I figure out ways to make new components for it," he babbled, happy she was happy, but also feeling this terrible weight of grief. He'd lost so much and he was so damn scared that he might lose more. "So let me show you how it works," he continued and she nodded looking up at him and he could feel that little frisson of energy that was their nascent bond.

"Doctor? What's wrong?" she asked and he cupped her face in his hand.

"I just love you so much," he told her. "It's a little scary sometimes, that's all." She nodded.

"Yeah, I get that," she kissed him and he held her tightly against him.

"I love being married to you," he confessed and she laughed.

"I love being married to you too," she replied with another sweet kiss. "But there is something on your mind. You've been moping for days now."

"Moping? Moping? Me? I don't mope! I never mope!" he insisted and then, upon spying her dubious expression he sighed out. "Well, maybe a touch of melancholy, a tiny smidgen of gloom, but I certainly was not moping!" As he'd planned, his little speech made her laugh. He smiled down into her eyes.

"Very well, but don't think I didn't see what you did there! You are trying to put me off the scent, but I am not fooled!" she told him, poking him in the ribs for added emphasis. "You've been depressed and you haven't told me why." Her determined chin was telling him that he'd better tell her something, or risk sleeping on the couch.

"I have been a trifle down, yes. Building these has been a lot of fun, but it's also been making me think about every failure I've ever experienced." He shrugged, trying to minimize the real anguish he'd been experiencing.

"Such as?" she asked gently.

"Where to begin," he groaned. "Well, for starters, I've gotten my entire family killed off." She winced and he controlled his rising anger with an effort. "I've got a new family, but I feel woefully inadequate to keep them from harm. Also, I am facing the concept of my own mortality in a very different manner than I ever have before. Add into that the concept that I cannot just walk away from difficult situations, that I have to stay and try to work things out, that up until now every skill I've learned was geared towards getting myself out of things, and that I now have to learn how to stick around…" He ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it into a tangled mess. "I guess I'm a bit overwhelmed at times."

"You miss being a Time Lord," she pounced on the one bit that he'd hoped she wouldn't.

"It wasn't just about being nearly immortal, Rose. I feel blind and deaf in this body. I can barely see things that used to be crystal clear to me. I can't feel the planet moving unless I really concentrate, I lost track of time yesterday, I don't know what's going to happen…" he trailed off and simply nodded. "Yeah, I do." He shrugged, trying to minimize the impact of that statement on her. "I was one for a lot longer than I've been human, it's just a matter of practice."

"If you say so," she murmured. She looked off to one side, her face pensive. "I never really considered what you've lost, I guess," she confessed and he turned her face to his again.

"That's because, whatever I've lost, I've gained so much more," he assured her, his heart in his eyes. "I have never been as happy in my whole life as I've been with you, Rose. You make everything worthwhile." She beamed up at him, her smile the most wonderful thing in the universe.

"Yeah, me too," she told him softly and her kiss was enough to still his doubts and banish his regrets. He was where he belonged, he was with her. That was enough.


End file.
